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THE 

MAN FROM NOWHERE 


BY^ 

ANNA T. 'SADLIER 





New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER’s MAGAZINE 

1918 


Copyright, 1918, by Benziger Brothers 



MAR 27 1918 

©CU494333 
oto / 


CONTENTS 

BOOK I 

CHAPTER page 

I. A Boat Among the Breakers. . . 7 

II. The Life-Savers 17 

III. A Solemn Scene 25 

IV. The Hospitality of the Villa ... 35 

V. A Night Vigil 44 

VI. A Startling Apparition 53 

VII. The Stranger Describes His 

Sensations 69 

VHI. Disappearance 81 

BOOK H 

I. Father McNeimy’s Picnic 91 

II. The Crabbing Expedition 105 

III. Another Mystery 116 

IV. A Munificent Gift... 128 

V. Gift follows Gift 138 

BOOK III 

L Overtaken by the Storm 145 

II. A Singular Abode 153 

III. A Memorable Experience 165 

IV. Further Mystery 171 

V. Conclusion 176 


5 



THE MAN FROM NOWHERE 

BOOK I 


CHAPTER I 

A BOAT AMONG THE BREAKERS 

rp HOUGH it does not seem necessary to 
* mention here that village beside the sea 
wherewith this narrative is mainly concerned, 
it may be frankly confessed that it is an ac- 
tual place and at no very considerable dis- 
tance from the great metropolis of New 
York. 

Very real, too, were the four boys who, 
despite various differences in their upbring- 
ing and surroundings, had during the sum- 
mer of that particular year become fast 
friends. Ben Masterson, the oldest, was tall 
and heavily built, his tall and muscular frame 
well inured to hardship, his tanned, almost 
leathern, complexion proclaimed that he was 
a resident of the place and followed the sea 
as his principal calling. Like many another 
of his type, be was slow and taciturn of 

7 


8 The Man From Nowhere 

speech, and his thoughts were tardy in for- 
mulating themselves. 

Paddy Wallace, the youngest of the lads, 
was likewise a native, and, having early lost 
his parents, had led somewhat of a vagabond 
existence. He was quick and lively in imagi- 
nation, and his natural intelligence was just 
being developed by the first rudiments of 
education. 

Between these two, in point of age, came 
Harry and Fred Tremaine; and, as their 
appearance at once suggested, they were 
merely summer residents and the sons of a 
wealthy father. In character and disposi- 
tion the brothers were markedly dissimilar 
to each other. Fred was wiry, thin, and 
dark, of a restless, nervous temperament, 
perpetually in action and scarcely giving 
himself time to think. Harry, on the con- 
trary, was tall and fair, with large, wide- 
open, blue eyes, and was of a thoughtful and 
reflective turn of mind. His ideas were very 
often quicker than his acts and he was very 
frequently the spokesman of the party. 

It may be further premised that the Tre- 
maines inhabited a handsome summer villa 


A Boat Among the Breakers 9 

situated at a short distance up from the 
shore. Their father and mother had gone to 
travel abroad that summer and had left 
them in care of their former nurse, Hannah, 
now the housekeeper, with the occasional su- 
pervision of an uncle, who came down from 
the city two or three times a week just to 
assure himself that all was well with his 
nephews. 

Upon the particular morning when this 
story opens the ocean was of a deep aqua- 
marine blue reflected from the cloudless sky 
above, while the beach, in contrast, stretched 
white and broad and smooth upward from 
the water. The incoming tide sent its wave- 
lets, ever increasing, until they should later 
reach a mountainous height. Though the 
hour was very early, the boys were already 
upon the shore, where Fred and his brother 
Harry were hard at work digging a tunnel 
in the sand. Ben and Paddy stood near, 
watching that operation with interest, 
though taking no part in its progress. Their 
lives had been too strenuous for them to 
waste their energies in so futile a construc- 
tion, which the first big wave would ruth- 


10 


The Man From Nowhere 


lessly demolish. Such futility, as they read- 
ily granted, however, was excusable in boys 
who had only come to the seashore for the 
summer, and who were fresh from college. 

Fred pursued the occupation with an 
anxious, worried expression upon his coun- 
tenance, as if it were really an important 
undertaking. He had already dug his way 
deep down, forming an excavation. Harry, 
on the contrary, removed the sand from de- 
liberately planned passages, arranging it in 
neat piles, which he flattened into shape 
with his shovel, producing smooth hillocks. 
Fred sent the same sand flying furiously in 
every direction and dug and dug, as if pre- 
cious moments were speeding, and he was 
digging a path to freedom from a dungeon. 

“Golly, but you kin dig fast!” cried Pad- 
dy, who had been watching his friend’s prog- 
ress with admiring eyes. “I wish I could 
dig as fast, up there to Brown’s.” He 
pointed as he spoke to a large dwelling on 
the cliff, “Kase I gits paid by what I does.” 

“Do you?” asked Fred, momentarily sus- 
pending his arduous labors; “how much do 
you get?” 


A Boat Among the Breakers 11 

“Well, if I does a good day’s work, my 
wages moimts up to three or four dollars.” 

“That’s not much,” declared Fred, pur- 
suing his suspended operations. 

“He means that he and I get more for 
doing nothing,” explained Harry, laughing 
and placidly smoothing one of his heaps. At 
that instant Fred sent up such a cloud of 
sand from the pit that his brother remon- 
strated: 

“Look here!” cried he, “you stop that! 
You’re getting my clothes all over sand!” 

“Your clothes r repeated Fred, scorn- 
fully, “as if any fellow cares about his 
clothes.” 

“Well, you stop, anyway!” retorted 
Harry, “I’ll get some of that stuff in my 
eye first thing you know, and if I do. I’ll 
fill up that hole and throw the sand in on 
top of you.” 

“I’d like to see you,” growled Fred from 
the depths, “and I’m not going to stop dig- 
ging till I get this thing done.” 

He sent his fierce shovelfuls, however, 
prudently in another direction after that, 
for he Imew by experience that once his 


12 The Man From Nowhere 

mild-mannered brother’s temper was up, he 
might be dangerous. He continued, never- 
theless, to grumble as he worked. 

“At the pace you’re going, the tide will 
be in before we finish.” 

“Well, if it does come in,” Harry an- 
swered philosophically, “none of us will 
sleep any the worse to-night.” 

Fred, seeing that argument was useless, 
devoted all his energies to his task. 

Ben sat meanwhile upon an old boat 
that had been stranded and half buried in 
the sand. He watched the two at work, lis- 
tening to the contest between them with a 
half smile on his somewhat heavy face. Grad- 
ually, however, as the tunnel proceeded to- 
ward completion and the tide, crawling and 
licking the sandy beach and depositing 
thereon feathery ridges of foam, crept up 
nearer and nearer to the fortification, Ben’s 
thoughts wandered and followed his eyes 
outward over the wastes of sea. The gulls 
were flying upward with a rapid, joyous 
movement, betokening fine weather ; the 
waves were leaping and dancing; and the 
fresh salt breeze was blowing landward. As 


A Boat Among the Breakers 13 

Ben gazed, his eyes took on a keener expres- 
sion and raising his hand he shielded his 
eyes that he might see the farther. Then he 
said : 

“Paddy, look out yonder!” 

Paddy looked and uttered an exclama- 
tion: 

“Cricky, Ben!” he cried, “it’s a boat, a 
catboat, I guess, and what — ” 

He said no more, but ran with a quick, 
instinctive movement down to the water’s 
edge. 

“It’s bottom upward!” he cried, “that’s 
what it is.” 

“By Jingo!” was all Ben said, as he strode 
after his friend. By mutual consent, they 
seemed to ignore the city boys, who could 
not be expected to know an 3 d;hing of such 
an emergency. 

“There’s some one on her,” announced 
Ben, making a telescope of his hands. 

“What? Where?” cried Fred, unwilling 
to be so ignored and leaping out of the pit, 
which was now up to his shoulders. By his 
impetuous movements, he overthrew several 
hillocks which Harry had carefully upraised. 


14 


The Man From Nowhere 


“You great loon!” explaimed Harry, 
irately, “can’t you look where you’re going!” 

But Fred was already standing beside 
the two at the water’s edge, straining his 
near-sighted eyes this way and that over 
the waste of waters to catch sight of the ob- 
ject which had attracted his companions. 

Harry placidly continued, at first, to re- 
arrange his hillocks, putting them into order 
with careful touch. Presently, however, he 
too deserted the tunnel and rose to join his 
friends, as fragments of disjointed talk 
reached him. 

“It is a boat.” 

“No, I guess it’s a porpoise.” 

“No, there she goes!” 

“The tide’ll take her out.” 

“No, it won’t neither, the tide’s cornin’ in.” 

“But thar’s the undertow,” declared Ben 
thoughtfully. 

“Did you say there was a man on the 
boat?” asked Fred excitedly. 

“I ain’t sure,” answered Ben, “though 
it looks that way.” 

Paddy began an excited hopping about 
from one foot to another, venturing his bare 


A Boat Among the Breakers 15 

feet as far as possible into the water, as 
though he could annihilate distance and dis- 
cover the actual truth. Harry opened his 
blue eyes wide and fixed them upon the face 
of Ben, having great confidence in the lat- 
ter’s judgment concerning things nautical. 

“What do you think will happen?” he 
questioned, breathlessly. 

Ben turned and looked curiously at his 
companion as he said: 

“Why, thar’s jest one thing that’s sure 
to happen. Ef there’s a man out there in 
the surf, he’ll get drownded.” 

“Oh,” cried Harry, “can’t we do any- 
thing?” 

But even Fred’s feverish activity and 
Paddy’s impulsive movements were equally 
in vain. Breathlessly and nervously the Tre- 
maines, at least, waited for Ben’s answer 
to Harry’s question. 

“Ef I could be sartain there was a man 
out there, I’d — ” 

“Look, Ben, look!” cried Paddy, breath- 
lessly, “there is a man and he’s putting up 
a signal!” 

The two pairs of trained eyes saw what 


16 The Man From Nowhere 

was at first invisible to the others — a stick 
hoisted, upon which waved a flag, or a red 
handkerchief. 

“I know what to do now!” exclaimed Ben. 
“Come on, Paddy!” 

“Where are you going, Ben?” inquired 
Fred, following so quickly upon his foot- 
steps as to outstrip the heavier lad, and con- 
sequently having to dance backward in front 
of him. Paddy ran straight on, knowing 
what Ben had in mind. Harry hesitated 
for a few moments, and by a sort of subcon- 
sciousness, distinct from the keen anxiety 
that possessed him, he cast one regretful 
glance toward the nearly completed tunnel. 
But he could not keep still in the presence 
of that tempting speck upon the surface of 
the ocean. He wanted to know what was 
going on and to help if it were possible in 
whatever project Ben might have in mind 
for the relief of that imperiled fellow-crea- 
ture. 

“What are you going to do, Ben?” Fred 
inquired again. 

“I’m going to collect the men,” Ben an- 
swered, panting a little from the pace at 


The Life-Savers 


17 


which he was running, ‘‘for we’ve got to 
launch the life-boat.” 


CHAPTER II 

THE LIFE-SAVERS 

rfl he sound of that word was magical to 
^ the city boys. It recalled so many thrill- 
ing stories of shipwreck and deadly peril, 
of hidden reefs, sunken rocks, human waifs 
tossed on the treacherous element, and more 
than knightly heroism. It filled them, too, 
with a kind of awe, for here under the bright 
arch of heaven, on an ordinary morning and 
in these familiar places, a possible tragedy 
was to be enacted. And it was this tragedy 
which brave men were about to risk their 
lives to prevent. 

“Look here!” cried Harry, panting after 
the others, for he disliked haste, though his 
thoughts, at least, had been working to good 
purpose. “Let us separate at the boardwalk 
and each take a road. We’ll get the men 
together quicker.” 


18 


The Man From Nowhere 


“By Jingo, you’re right!” returned Ben. 

“Well, give us each the name of some of 
the crew, and let us start.” 

“We’ll want a dozen or maybe more,” de- 
cided Ben, running over the matter in his 
mind, “it’s a big boat and there’s a strong 
sea on.” 

“I’m a fast runner, give me six,” ex- 
claimed Fred. He got them— Welch and 
the two Morgans, and Dolan and Smith 
and Curran — and he was off like a deer, leav- 
ing the beach and bounding over the fences 
in a cross-country route that he had marked 
out for himself. 

“Give me some of the nearest, as I’m 
slow,” Harry suggested, and Ben gave him 
two. Three more were intrusted to Paddy, 
who was also swift of foot. 

“That leaves jest one for me,” Ben con- 
cluded. “It’s Wells that’s got the key to the 
boat-house.” 

He pointed as he spoke to a familiar but 
unsightly structure of gray, unpainted wood 
which occupied a space where the boardwalk 
went up from the beach. 

“Him and me,” Ben explained, “can be 


The Life-Savers 19 

gettin’ things in order while the others are 
cornin’.” 

This being settled, Paddy and Harry set 
off in different directions, each going as 
speedily as he could. Harry always remem- 
bered as he ran the scent of the sweet-briar 
bush, which grew solitary by the roadside 
and against which he stumbled and fell, for 
he was not a good runner. Up he got again 
and hastened on, casting one glance back- 
ward toward that speck on the vast expanse 
of water. It did not seem as if that broad 
and sunlit surface could be cruel and treach- 
erous. If it had been dark and troubled from 
an overcast sky, he would have realized the 
man’s peril so much the more acutely. As 
it was, however, he was the only one of the 
boys who thought of sending up a prayer 
for the safety of the unfortunate while he 
sped upon his mission. Fred, at least, would 
have done so, and probably Paddy, had they 
given themselves time to think. 

It did not take so very long to assemble 
the men that were needed — resolute, strong, 
and brave, and accustomed to wrestle with 
the sea. A great many others arrived upon 


20 The Man Prom Nowhere 

the scene; in fact, the sands were soon 
swarming with human life. Men, women, 
and children assembl d there in excited 
throngs — residents of the village and still 
more the transient dwellers in hotels or cot- 
tages, who were glad of a sensation to break 
the languid monotony of their summer ex- 
istence, All eyes were turned and many 
powerful glasses leveled upon that dis- 
tant object, far out at the mercy of the 
treacherous waves. By the glasses it could 
be clearly perceived that the boat was in- 
deed bottom upward, that a human being 
was keeping a precarious position upon its 
slippery surface and that he had contrived 
to hoist a signal in the form of a handker- 
chief fastened to a stick. At any moment, 
as the initiated were aware, the frail bark 
might be sucked downward by the terrible 
undertow. It was a fearful situation for a 
fellow-creature under the sky of heaven, as 
even the most careless realized. 

The Tremaine boys and Paddy Wallace, 
having fulfilled their respective tasks, hur- 
ried back to the beach and mingled with 
the throng of spectators. They were easily 


The Life-Savers 


21 


among the most eager and excited per- 
sons there. They dj’^dded their attention 
between the hapless%l)ject of universal in- 
terest and the boat-house, whose doors 
yawned wide, disclosing therein Ben Mas- 
terson deftly and silently assisting the older 
men. The necessary preparations were, in 
fact, being carried on with the utmost 
promptness and despatch and in almost ab- 
solute silence 

The chief delay was in the transport of 
the boat’s huge bulk to the beach. Horses 
had to be procured, being eagerly offered by 
villagers and summer residents alike. They 
were harnessed to a huge truck on which 
the life-boat was laid with great hoisting and 
strenuous effort of numerous brawny arms. 
When the horses, laboring in the heavy sand, 
dragged forth that ark of safety, a cheer 
went up from the multitude upon the beach. 
On and on went the horses, plowing their 
way, almost ankle deep, through the soft 
substance beneath their feet. With evident 
relief, they reached, at last, the firmer, 
smoother surface near the water’s edge and 
drove along with renewed vigor, finally 


22 The Man From Nowhere 

reaching that point where the boat was to 
be launched. 

Who that stood there on that bright morn- 
ing, under that unclouded sky, with the sea- 
birds circling and wheeling overhead, and 
the porpoises tossing far out on the horizon, 
could forget the wild thrill of excitement, 
hope, and fear of which he was conscious at 
that supreme moment! Some two score or 
more strong men united in that final effort, 
a vigorous, prolonged push, which sent the 
life-boat splashing and foaming into the 
midst of the waves. They had arisen now 
with the incoming tide, which was almost at 
the full, to an immense height, and they 
broke with a muffled roar, rushing far up on 
the beach. 

As the boat struck the water, cheer upon 
cheer broke forth and rose upward once 
more, echoing and re-echoing. Perhaps it 
reached the forlorn wretch tossing upon the 
miserable planks which separated him from 
eternity. 

Harry Tremaine’s blue eyes were full of 
tears, as with Fred and Paddy he vocifer- 
ously joined in that cry of triumph. Neither 


The Life-Savers 


23 


of the two latter could keep still an instant. 
They ran to and fro, uttering excited ex- 
clamations, and once Fred narrowly escaped 
falling into the pit which he had himself dug. 
The incoming tide had now reached it and 
had filled it to the top with water, which like- 
wise flooded the passages and gradually 
washed away the barriers between them. This 
was the very result upon which the boys had 
counted, and yet as Harry’s strong arm 
drew his brother back from the edge of that 
pitfall, there seemed something awful in the 
circumstance. Nor could they realize that 
they had been so lately busied about so trivial 
a matter. Thus do the trivialities of life for- 
ever appear in the presence of its grave 
emergencies. 

As many as were required of the best and 
the strongest and the bravest men that the 
village could afford composed the crew. 
And it was a compliment to Ben, of which 
his companions were proud, that he should 
have been given a place among them. They 
took their places silently, baring their arms, 
whereon the veins stood out like whipcords, 
and preparing to wrestle with that fierce. 


24 


The Man From Nowhere 


overmastering element. It was a tremen- 
dous task to encounter that surf, rising 
mountain high, breaking thunderously and 
encirchng them and their craft in showers of 
feathery foam. It seemed inevitable that 
the vessel must be swallowed up and dashed 
to pieces against the shore, since the tide 
surging strongly inward seemed absolutely 
dead against the attempts they were making. 
It appeared a hopeless thing to extend any 
help to that human waif out there in his 
isolation. 

No one knew who he was. So far as could 
be ascertained, none of the villagers or the 
summer visitors were missing, yet the crowd 
in its entirety hung upon the chance of his 
rescue. It was a curious thing that no sooner 
had the boat set out, with its gallant crew 
strenuously accepting those fearful odds and 
straining every muscle in the; effort they were 
making, than the multitude upon the beach 
became convinced that the man was hope- 
lessly doomed and that the life-boat could 
never by any possibility reach him in time. 

Those who watched through the glasses 
held their breath, for every instant they ex- 


A Solemn Scene 


25 


pected to see the man engulfed. They saw 
the waves ever and anon seize the frail shell 
to which he clung and hurry it shoreward, 
and at such moments they fancied they 
could descry the white, agonized face 
of the unfortunate seafarer. But even 
as they looked a receding wave or some pow- 
erful current seized and carried the boat out- 
wards again, almost beyond their range of 
vision. Those who had no glasses strained 
their eyes, but with very little result, per- 
ceiving only the moving speck and the sur- 
face of the sea. For many moments not a 
word was spoken; the hush in so far as hu- 
man feehngs were concerned was intense, 
while the life-boat danced upon the waves 
or was buried in the trough of the sea, and 
the spectators waited in an almost intoler- 
able suspense. 

CHAPTER III 

A SOLEMN SCENE 

A mong the latest to arrive upon the beach 
was the parish priest, Father Mc- 
Neimy. He had been absent on a sick-call 


26 


The Man From Nowhere 


when the news of the overturned boat had 
first spread through the village. He was 
greeted on all sides with respectful friend- 
liness and even cordiality, not only by those 
of his flock, but by the outsiders as well. 
They knew the value of his work to the vil- 
lage, where he was the first resident priest. 
His untiring activity, self-sacrifice, and un- 
ostentatious kindness were known to every 
one; and in moments of trouble and imcer- 
tainty the sight of his tall, well-knit figure 
and strong but kindly countenance was al- 
ways welcome. He was greeted tumul- 
tuously by the Tremaine boys and Paddy. 
Fred began to tell him — so quickly that his 
words were jumbled oddly together — of 
everything that had transpired, and Harry 
put in a few quiet explanatory phrases, 
which were far more intelligible to the new- 
comer. 

Being thus informed. Father McNeirny 
stood with the rest and watched the progress 
of the life-boat. It was a fine sight, wrest- 
ling with the big waves and making its way 
resolutely toward that still distant goal. 
There came a moment, however, of awful 


A Solemn Scene 


27 


terror and suspense for the watchers, when 
the man upon the overturned boat seemed to 
have disappeared under a huge, engulfing 
wave. It was believed that either his boat 
had sunk from under him or that he had 
been washed away, which was the more 
terrible since the life-boat was within com- 
paratively easy distance of the spot. 

“Oh, Father McNeirny, isn’t it awful?” 
cried Harry, turning imploring eyes upon 
the priest, as if he could have commanded 
wind and wave by the very power of his min- 
istry. 

5nt the priest, absorbed in some engross- 
ing thought, paid no heed to the boy. He 
advanced instead toward the water, with his 
eyes still fixed upon the fateful spot, fol- 
lowed by the awe-stricken boys. Many a 
glance besides that of Harry was turned up- 
on the pastor. Somehow it seemed as if he 
might avert the disaster. 

Pausing, at length, at the water’s edge. 
Father McNeirny said, as one thinking 
aloud : 

“I shall delay no longer. I’ll give him 
conditional absolution, whoever he may be.” 


28 The Man From Nowhere 

“God bless you and do, Father,” cried 
an old woman, from whose aged eyes tears 
were streaming. 

Every one waited respectfully. Even 
Protestants or other outsiders who had no 
hold whatever upon Christianity regarded 
him curiously. They drew a kind of comfort 
from the mysterious power which, as it was 
quietly whispered around, he was about to 
exert over that human soul which might be 
even then slipping from its bonds and los- 
ing its hold upon earthly life. The priest 
had with him the stole which he had but late- 
ly worn when administering the Sacraments 
to a dying person in the calm obscurity of a 
little inland village. He put this about his 
neck and knelt a moment in prayer, and the 
Catholics — of whom there were many pres- 
ent — knelt likewise, while others raised their 
hats or bent the knee, sympathetically. Fred 
and Harry afterward declared that they had 
never prayed so hard in their lives as then. 
After that slight pause the priest arose and 
said in a clear, distinct voice : 

“By the power which the Church confers 
upon her ministers, the power derived from 


A Solemn Scene 


29 


Christ, I am about to give this man condi- 
tional absolution.’’ 

There was a dead silence, broken only by 
a giant wave breaking upon the shore. The 
priest raised his hand and every one present, 
forgetting all controversial differences, was 
impressed by the tremendous power of the 
act. 

“I absolve you,” he said in Latin, “from 
all sins, in the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Ghost.” To which he 
added: “May the Almighty God have mercy 
on you and forgive you your sins and bring 
you to hfe everlasting. Amen.” 

A kind of peace and quietness fell over 
the scene with the performance of that holy 
act. Women and even strong men, over- 
come by the solemnity of the occasion, wept 
audibly, while the priest, sinking once more 
upon his knees, prayed aloud and begged the 
people to pray for the rescue of the unhappy 
being thus buffeted by the waves or for the 
salvation of his soul. The air seemed to 
vibrate with those burning words of suppli- 
cation wherein people of all creeds or of 
none felt impelled to join. It used to be 


30 


The Man From Nowhere 


said long afterwards in the village that the 
whole incident was better than twenty ser- 
mons and it brought back more than one stray 
sheep to the fold. It showed the relative 
values, the little space which divides time 
from eternity and made every one realize, 
with a strange new force, the almost infinite 
power of the priesthood. 

The strained pause, disturbed only by the 
thunderous boom of the surf, was broken 
at length by a triumphant cry of gladness 
and exultation. For to the holders of glass- 
es, the distant boat, to which clung tliat 
forlorn waif of humanity, became once more 
visible. Fred and Harry stood close to- 
gether, the former clutching his brother in 
a nervous grip. Paddy was beside them, half 
crying, half praying in his own simple fash- 
ion. When the suspense was momentarily 
relieved he took oif his ragged cap and 
swung it over his head in glee, while Fred 
seized his unoccupied hand and, drawing 
Harry into the circle, performed a war- 
dance of delight. 

Father McNeirny, however, and the eld- 
ers with whom he conversed, felt that any- 


A Solemn Scene 


31 


thing like rejoicing was premature. For 
almost every one of them had known awful 
instances where seafarers in deadly peril 
had perished at the very moment when help 
was at hand. 

The life-boat, meanwhile, unaware of the 
solemn occurrence upon the shore, pursued 
its way, the rowers bending to their oars 
with Herculean effort and desperate de- 
termination. Each man of them felt that 
he must bring every muscle into play and 
exert every atom of strength which he pos- 
sessed, to reach that moving speck. The 
waters about them changed from clear sea- 
green to a deep reflection of the sky, and the 
sun shot its arrows of gold into their depths 
and played upon the crest of the billows. 
But the stern rowers, bronzed and weather- 
beaten, heeded none of these things, nor yet 
the graceful upward flight of the gulls. 
There were graybeards amongst the crew 
who had been wrestlers with the sea from 
youth upwards, one or two were mere boys 
like Ben Masterson, but all worked together 
with resolute unity of purpose. Sometimes, 
indeed, their own position seemed sufficiently 


32 


The Man From Nowhere 


perilous, as one giant wave after another 
broke over their boat and almost submerged 
the brave rescuers, and as they drew nearer 
their goal, the difficulties appeared mo- 
mentarily to increase. 

The crowds upon the beach, relapsing 
from their transient joyfulness of relief, 
waited with strained eyes and bated breath, 
fearing that any moment the shipwrecked 
man might disappear beneath the waves, and 
rembling even for the safety of the party of 
succor. For some upon that beach had sons 
or husbands or fathers amongst the crew, 
and the vicissitudes of the life-boat kept 
them in an agony of fear. 

At last, by one supreme effort, the race 
was run, the gallant life-boat had attained 
its object, a human life was saved. A curi- 
ous sight was witnessed then upon the shore. 
While cheer after cheer rent the air, ringing, 
tumultuous, vibrant with pent-up emotion, 
men clasped hands in strong pressure, and 
women hugged each other, some laughing, 
some crying. It showed the intrinsic good 
of human nature that such delight should 
reign supreme amongst so motley an as- 


A Solemn Scene 


33 


semblage of all classes and conditions be- 
cause the deliverance of that one fellow-crea- 
ture from the jaws of death. 

The three boys of our acquaintance were 
not behind any of the rest in manifestations 
of pleasure. They uttered whoop after 
whoop, while Father McNeirny stood smil- 
ingly regarding them through the tears that 
coursed down his cheeks. They sprang from 
a heart which had never become hardened 
by the daily painful sufferings of his min- 
istry. 

“Boys,” he said, “God has been very good 
to us to-day in hearing our prayers and sav- 
ing the life of that poor fellow cast upon our 
shore. We mustn’t forget to give thanks 
for this favor we have received.” 

“We’ll all offer up our next First Friday 
communion in thanksgiving,” exclaimed 
Harry, speaking for his comrades and 
glancing at them for approval. 

Fred nodded vigorously. 

“Yes,” he cried, “we’ll promise to do that, 
won’t we, Paddy?” 

Paddy readily agreed, though he was 
more shy of expressing himself before the 


34 


The Man From Nowhere 


priest, despite the fact that he was Father 
McNeirny’s particular protege. 

“That’s right,” said the pastor, kindly, 
“so that if some of us should next want help 
it will be given to us.” 

The boys were deeply impressed by the 
solemnity of his manner, for when he was 
in conversation with the young folk his 
talk was ordinarily the very reverse of this. 
He was usually as cheerful and as full of 
jest as if he were a boy himself. In the pause 
that followed, Harry, whose manner had 
been growing more and more thoughtful, 
suddenly slipped away. No one heeded his 
departure, and it was something of a sacri- 
fice on his part to leave that exciting scene. 
Nevertheless it had occurred to him that 
there was something which ought to be done. 
He sped, as swiftly as his limited capabilities 
would permit, to the Tremaine villa, pro- 
ceeding at once to the stable. There he found 
Mike the coachman greatly dissatisfied that 
he had been unable to leave the horses and 
witness the spectacle. 

“Harness up at once,” cried Harry, cut- 
ting Mike’s grumbling short, “and let us 
drive to the beach.” 


The Hospitality of the Villa 35 

The boy’s manner was unusually per- 
emptory, and Mike, nothing loath to pro- 
ceed to the scene of the excitement, obeyed, 
while Harry entered the house and gave a 
few hurried directions to Hannah. 

CHAPTER IV 

THE HOSPITALITY OF THE VILLA 

HERE was another moment of intense ex- 
^ citement when the life-boat came to 
shore. Every one crowded about the spot 
with greetings and congratulations to the 
heroes who had snatched its prey from the 
sea. In the center of the vessel, wrapped 
in a heavy coat, which had been thrown over 
his drenched garments, was a spare and 
wiry man, about thirty-five years of age. His 
face was pale under the deep tan, or else 
its rigidity suggested paleness, the eyes 
were closed wearily, the wet hair hung dank- 
ly over the forehead, the lips were blue and 
a shivering, as of deadly chill, passed 
through the exhausted frame. 

When the boat was made fast, and a 
couple of the men made a movement to lift 
him, the stranger suddenly opened a pair of 


36 


The Man From Nowhere 


resolute gray eyes, that denoted character, 
and waving his helpers aside, arose, though 
with evident effort. Seeing his weakness 
Ben Masterson and another stalwart fellow 
seized him by either arm and assisted him to 
shore. Leaning upon them, he stood still a 
moment, gazing silently out over the ocean, 
whence he had come, with irrepressible shud- 
dering. He spoke at last, in a low, shaken 
voice : 

“It is well,’’ he said, “to feel the land un- 
der one’s feet again, and I thank you all a 
thousand times.” 

While he said the words he reeled as one 
giddy, clutching Ben and exclaiming with 
an air of vexation: 

“Who would have dreamed of such a 
thing, that I should need an arm to hold me, 
like some fainting girl.” 

The spectators now began to look at each 
other; an idea, which singularly enough had 
not previously occurred to them, began to 
weigh upon their minds. What was to be 
done with this personage who was thus res- 
cued from the sea? Of the villagers, who 
were mostly poor, scarcely one had a corner 


The Hospitality of the Villa 37 

to spare ; and the summer cottagers, between 
themselves and their visitors, were in pretty 
much the same case. Even the hotels were 
crowded. Something, however, must be 
managed, and clearly it was expedient that 
something should be done at once. While 
every one hesitated. Father McNeirny, un- 
derstanding the situation, exclaimed: 

“Boys, you had better bring him up to 
my house,” and he added in an undertone, 
to some who remonstrated, “he can have my 
bed, you know. I’ll easily find a place to 
stretch my limbs.” 

The stranger possibly heard, though he 
said nothing, as the remark was not meant 
for his ears, but he opened his eyes, which 
had closed through weakness, and fixed 
them a moment upon the priest. One dif- 
ficulty yet remained in the way of carrying 
out this suggestion. The priest’s house was 
very far and there was no conveyance just 
then at hand. It would be a considerable dis- 
tance to carry the stranger, whose exhausted 
condition required speedy attention. 

In this awkward dilemma, the sound of 
wheels was heard, faintly at first, coming 


38 


The Man From Nowhere 


down the village street. Everybody looked 
in that direction. If only a vehicle could be 
immediately procured, it would relieve the 
tension of an embarrassing situation. To the 
astonishment of the multitude — and, it may 
as well be confessed, of Fred himself— there 
was Harry, sitting beside Mike the coach- 
man on the box of the Tremaine carriage, 
coming as fast as it was possible to drive in 
the soft sand. A murmur of applause, which 
finally rose into a cheer, broke from the as- 
semblage upon the beach. 

‘Tt’s Harry Tremaine, by all that’s won- 
derful,” cried the priest. ‘'Bravo, Harry, 
bravo, lad! It’s you that has a head on your 
shoulders.” 

The boy, laughing and waving his cap, 
jumped down from his elevated position at 
imminent danger to his limbs. Reddening 
and confused by the applause, for he was 
not a forward boy, Harry explained: 

“I brought our carriage down so that the 
gentleman might be moved at once.” 

The stranger’s eyes fixed themselves a 
moment upon the speaker’s face, as they had 
previously done on that of Father Me- 


The Hospitality of the Villa 39 

Neirny, and a smile relaxed the stern lines 
of his visage. 

“I shall accept your kind offer, my boy,” 
he whispered, “for I fear that I can not 
walk. Will you drive me to the nearest hotel ?” 

“The hotels are all full,” cried Fred, who 
stood near, delighted at his brother’s happy 
thought, “our parents are absent, but I 
know they would be only too glad.” 

The stranger hesitated: 

“Are you and the other boy brothers?” 
he inquired after a slight pause. 

“Yes, sir,” answered Fred. 

“Then you may take me where you will,” 
declared the rescued man, as another fit of 
shivering seized upon him. 

He was fairly lifted into the carriage by 
many willing hands and wrapped in heavy 
rugs. The Tremaine boys also insisted that 
Father McNeirny should come with them. 
Before entering the vehicle, the priest called 
Harry aside and questioned him. 

“Is it quite convenient for you to accom- 
modate the man at your house?” he asked, 
“for you know I have already offered to take 
him.” 


40 


The Man From Nowhere 


“Oh, I have made it all right with Han- 
nah,” Harry answered, “she will have every- 
thing ready by the time we reach home, and 
our house is a great deal nearer than yours. 
Father.” 

This being satisfactory, the priest seated 
himself beside the stranger, supporting the 
weary head upon his shoulder. Ben Master- 
son, in case his help should be needed, was 
directed to squeeze himself in beside Fred 
and Harry upon the front seat and Paddy 
Wallace was told to climb up beside Mike. 
As the carriage was about to start, the new- 
ly rescued man raised himself for a moment 
and spoke to those upon the shore : 

“I thank you again, you brave men, who 
have saved me, and all who have been kind. 
Some day — ” 

But sheer exhaustion prevented further 
utterance, and at a sign from Father Mc- 
Neirny the carriage drove away, amid vo- 
ciferous cheering from the crowd. 

The man abandoned himself after that to 
his weariness, relaxing every muscle, and 
the short drive was made in silence. As the 
equipage drew up at the door of the villa. 


The Hospitality of the Villa 41 

the pale lips unclosed once more and the 
words were faintly audible: 

“It was a gallant thing. I shall always 
be grateful to them.” 

Father McNeirny could not help reflect- 
ing, though as the moment was unpropitious 
he said nothing, that this being, snatched 
so lately from the abyss, had thanked every 
one save the Supreme Master, whose al- 
mighty hand had been outstretched over 
the waste of waters to protect him in his 
imminent danger and to make his rescue 
possible. 

As Harry had said, everything was pre- 
pared by Hannah at the house for the sea- 
farer’s reception. While Mike harnessed 
the horses, the housekeeper had been made 
aware of the happenings at the beach and of 
all that would be necessary. Like most of 
her race, Hannah Hogan was kindly dis- 
posed. She had the true Irish heart for all 
who were in misfortune and, moreover, 
she was aware that hospitality was at all 
times the law of the Tremaine villa. 

She made ready a small room upon the 
ground floor and placed therein a dressing- 


42 


The Man From Nowhere 


gown and other wearing apparel belonging 
to the master of the house. She also put 
blankets to heat and prepared a hot drink. 
Even while thus occupied, and after the un- 
fortunate stranger had been put to bed, she 
was nevertheless tormented by misgivings, 
and these she confided to the boys: 

“How’d ye know,” she inquired, “but that 
this might be a lad who would go off with the 
silver?” 

“Nonsense, Hannah,” answered Fred; 
“why, he has just been taken off a boat away 
out in the surf, and I’m almost sure that 
he’s a gentleman.” 

“Well, I leave it on you both, if anything 
happens,” she declared, thus metaphorically 
washing her hands of the affair. This 
did not prevent her from observing with in- 
terest the removal of the stranger from the 
carriage to the villa by Father McNeimy 
and Ben. The villa, it may be proper to 
mention here, was a modern one, built of 
California shingles, unpainted and im- 
adomed, save by the gables and the lat- 
ticed windows. It was low and broad, with 
hardwood floors and galleries on every side. 


The Hospitality of the Villa 43 

Comfortably and even luxuriously furnished, 
though in a style suitable to a seaside dwell- 
ing, it gave every evidence of combined 
taste and wealth. 

The stranger, having been transported in- 
to this delightful interior, was divested of his 
wet clothing and put to bed by Father Mc- 
Neirny’s own hands, assisted still by the 
faithful Ben. Hannah, despite her grumb- 
ling and her fears, moved about, eager to 
do everything for the comfort of the “poor 
drownded creature.” It was only when all 
had been done that she followed the priest 
out to the gallery, expressing her uneasiness. 
She told him that it seemed to her a rash 
act to introduce a total stranger into the 
house, especially as the guardian uncle 
would not be down that evening. 

“We’ll leave Ben here with you and 
Paddy, too, who is a swift runner and could 
easily give the alarm,” answered Father 
McNeirny, “but I don’t really think there’s 
the least necessity.” 

The priest’s suggestion was adopted and 
Father McNeimy promised to call during 
the evening to see how matters were. The 


44 


The Man From Nowhere 


stranger had vehemently refused the attend- 
ance of the village doctor, who lived at a 
distance, and up to that point there did not 
seem any need of his attendance. 


CHAPTER V 

A NIGHT VIGIL 

B en Masterson and Paddy Wallace went 
away about noon, promising to return 
without fail at nightfall. They brought to 
the listening and still curious groups the lat- 
est news of the stranger, which was that he 
was sleeping as soundly as though he were 
never going to wake again. The house had, 
on that account, to be kept very quiet, and 
Fred and Harry strolled aimlessly about 
outside. They had pledged themselves not 
to leave the grounds upon any pretence, lest 
they should be needed. They could not set- 
tle to anything, either work or play, so that 
the time seemed very long and they wished 
devoutly that the stranger would awake and 
tell them of his experiences. 

At the dinner hour — which, during the 


45 


A Night Vigil 

summer and when their elders were absent, 
was about one o’clock — they entered the 
house noiselessly, and tiptoed through the 
halls and peeped with the utmost caution 
thi’ough the crack of the door into the dark- 
ened room where the stranger slept. It 
seemed weird to perceive him lying there, 
his bronzed face, clean cut in its outlines and 
framed by the black, unkempt hair, thrown 
into relief by the white background of the 
pillow. The sleep was deep and profound, 
that of utter exhaustion, and the sleeper 
never stirred. Later on, when the afternoon 
sun, westering, shed its mellow light upon 
the sea, gray now and placid in the long 
stretches of the outgoing tide, the boys went 
in again from the lawn and looked, but that 
profound slumber lasted still and there was 
not the slightest sound within the room but 
the man’s own regular breathing. Going out 
once more, the two challenged each other to 
a game of marbles, which they played with 
smooth, round pebbles picked up on the 
beach, and continued at that fascinating 
sport until their interest therein had slack- 
ened. Things were becoming monotonous. 


46 i The Man From Nowhere 

and the pair eagerly welcomed the stray 
knots of villagers who, on their way home 
from work, stopped at the gate for the lat- 
est news. 

Father McNeimy arrived just as it was 
getting dark, but hearing that the rescued 
man had not yet awakened, went to take a 
look at him. Satisfying himself that all was 
well, he loft, promising to return in the 
morning. 

It was about eight o’clock and the long 
summer twilight was deepening into night, 
when Ben and Paddy, according to agree- 
ment, arrived, to remain till morning. Fred 
and Harry were as much elated over their 
coming as if they had been a pair of royal 
princes. It was such a delightful novelty 
to have their two friends for so lengthy a 
visit. Hannah had made preparations for 
them ^o sleep in the loft over the stable, 
where they could be summoned at once by 
the coachman’s bell if any alarm should oc- 
cur. But both declared that they were pre- 
pared to remain up the greater part of the 
night, in case of need. Ben had taken a 
good rest after his exertions of the morning, 


47 


A Night Vigil 

and Paddy had likewise slept a couple of 
hours, so that they felt quite refreshed and 
ready for the vigil, which Fred and Harry, 
despite all remonstrances on the part of 
Hannah, expressed their determination to 
share. And this resolution the housekeeper 
felt herself quite powerless to shake. She 
therefore submitted to the inevitable with 
the best possible grace, and perhaps with a 
secret sense of relief. The four boys to- 
gether, she reflected, must surely be a match 
for one man, however bold and desperate he 
might prove. She sent the cook and house- 
maids to bed at their usual time, but sat up 
a full hour later herself, until the good soul 
was fairly consumed with drowsiness, and 
simply had to retire. 

She left an abundant supply of food in 
the larder, ready to the boys’ hand, with some 
bottles of sparkling cider. She warned them, 
if they felt chilly, to light the gas-log on the 
hearth, adding all sorts of instructions as 
to their behavior, if anything should happen. 
She sighed heavily over the fact that Mike 
the coachman did not sleep upon the prem- 
ises. She opened the stranger’s door half 


48 


The Man From Nowhere 


a dozen times at least to assure herself that 
he still slept and that his sleep was real. 
For at intervals she tormented herself with 
the suspicion that he might be only feigning. 

To all outward appearance, the uncon- 
scious subject of her fears slept as pro- 
foundly as if he were never going to wake 
again, and certainly it seemed as if his slum- 
bers were likely to continue iminterrupted 
till the morning. 

The boys were, in fact, very anxious that 
Hannah should disappear, especially Fred 
and Harry, who felt that they could not 
taste the full flavor of this novel and mys- 
terious adventure while she was still hover- 
ing near. At last her heavy footstep died 
away in the distance, and the four, drawing 
their chairs close together about the hearth, 
where they presently lit the gas-log, began 
thoroughly to enjoy themselves. 

Ben whiled away the time by recounting 
in terse language, the stronger for its sim- 
plicity, his experiences in the life-boat, the 
effort that had been required to withstand 
the strength of the tide and the force of the 
waves. He described the approach to the 


49 


A Night Vigil 

wreck, the arrival, and the rescue, the joy 
of the rescued man, and his belief at first 
that the vessel which had come to his succor 
was but a hallucination of his distracted 
fancy. He pictured the forlorn appearance 
of the castaway, and his desperate situation 
upon the slippery keel of the upturned boat. 

“Was he terrified?” Harry asked, in the 
same cautious whisper in which all their con- 
versation was conducted. 

“He must have been scared!” Ben an- 
swered, “but he didn’t squeal. He jest let 
us take him off quietlike, once he know’d 
that we was real men.” 

While they were still absorbed in this sub- 
ject, and wondering what could possibly 
have been the man’s sensations there in that 
tumultuous rush of many waters, the clock 
in the hall beside them, with a whirring rusty 
sound, suddenly announced the hour of 
twelve. 

The watchers started at the sound, for it 
was a ghostly time, as the younger boys par- 
ticularly felt, to be awake at all, and to be 
discussing thus a personage who had come 
amongst them in so thrilling a fashion, and 


50 


The Man From Nowhere 


who now lay close at hand in a sound and 
trancelike sleep. By a simultaneous move- 
ment, Harry and Fred and Paddy looked 
toward the stranger’s room, for the door 
opened upon that hall, and quite near where 
they were sitting. Even sturdy Ben, most 
practical and prosaic of mortals, glanced ap- 
prehensively over his shoulder. For the mid- 
night hour has terrors for those to whom it 
is unfamiliar. All was still, however, and 
Harry began to rehearse in a measured way, 
and for Ben’s benefit, the scene upon the 
beach. He described with a true dramatic 
instinct all that had happened after the 
launching of the life-boat. To this recital 
Fred and Paddy occasionally added a few 
minor details. He told of the solemn act 
performed by the priest when he gave con- 
ditional absolution to the man upon the 
wreck. Ben hstened with the deepest inter- 
est and attention and from time to time he 
asked a question. 

So absorbed were they all in the tale, 
that they did not perceive the gentle opening 
of a door close beside them, whence looked 
forth a bronzed face, shaded by coal-black 


51 


A Night Vigil 

hair, and a pair of keen gray eyes. Instead 
of advancing toward the group, the man re- 
mained within the room and listened. It 
was a thrilling tale that he heard, and cer- 
tainly none the less so because he himself 
was its hero; but it would have been hard 
to gather from his impassive face what im- 
pression was made upon him by these al- 
most weird details. The boy described sim- 
ply, but with unconscious art, that impressive 
moment when it seemed as if the figure upon 
the boat had been completely submerged, 
and would never rise again. Then the priest 
had stepped forward, and, raising his conse- 
crated hand, pronounced those tremendous 
words of pardon. They had seemed to stretch 
out over that wilderness of ocean and to 
touch with an actual touch the hapless crea- 
ture upon the wreck. Then, too, had the 
minister of God fallen upon his knees and 
prayed aloud, in strong and burning words, 
for the speedy rescue of the stranger, or, at 
least, for his happy death, his eloquent peti- 
tions rising to the God who rules the winds 
and waves. 

After Harry had concluded his narrative. 


52 The Man From Nowhere 

there was a long pause, for even the most 
careless of the four was deeply impressed. 
There was not a sound in the hall save the 
ticking of the great clock, checking off, as 
it were, the footsteps of time, and yet the 
watchers failed to note that the door of the 
bedroom, which had been left ajar, was 
softly opened and that the stranger had 
stepped quietly forth. It is difficult to say 
what would have been the sensations of the 
boys, even if they had observed their singu- 
lar visitor come forth from the room where 
they believed him to be still sleeping. No 
doubt, they would have got a shock, which 
they were to experience, indeed, in another 
manner. 

“If he had been swept away, we should 
never have seen him nor guessed who he 
was,” Harry concluded, “and we should 
never have known if he were a Catholic or 
if the absolution were of any use.” 

“That’s so,” assented Paddy, “and we 
wouldn’t even ha’ knowed if it was in time.” 

“It’s a splendid thing to be a priest,” 
Harry went on, “able to forgive sins, 
even when the person is away off like that. 


53 


A Startling Apparition 

But I guess the stranger ain’t a Catholic.” 

“Why?” asked the others. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” hesitated Harry, 
“except that he didn’t say thank God, nor 
any prayer at all, when he got safe to land.” 

“Cricky, I’d have said prayers ef I’d 
been he.” 

“I dunno,” said Ben, who was not very 
religious, “mebbe you’d forget, Paddy. It’s 
awful try in’ to the head to be battlin’ with 
the sea.” 

But Harry was not convinced. He felt that 
there was something wrong, and he stole a 
swift glance at the door of the bedroom. To 
his horror, it was open. 


CHAPTER VI 

A STARTLING APPARITION 

J UST at that moment the boy felt a hand 
on his shoulder. He started and all 
the others gave a sympathetic jump. And 
no wonder, for there stood the stranger, his 
hair still unkempt, his eyes gleaming in the 
firelight. The first sensation of every boy 


54 The Man From Nowhere 

was one of terror, as though this were a 
ghost, or a being risen from the dead. Even 
when their alarm assumed a more concrete 
form, they began to think of Hannah’s im- 
probable suggestion, which under present 
circumstances seemed possible, that this man 
might be a robber. Also, that he might seek 
by fair means or by foul to possess himself 
of the silver and the other valuables which 
the house contained. 

Three of the four, at least, strove to pre- 
sent a brave front. Ben Masterson, being 
strong and big, was naturally less fright- 
ened. Rising from his chair, a movement 
which the others imitated, he resolutely faced 
the newcomer. There was something weird 
and almost spectral in the latter’s aspect 
as he stood quite still, regarding the group. 
The very manner of his arrival seemed im- 
canny. Harry’s imagination was particu- 
larly active, picturing the sea as it would 
be like just then in the darkness, its surface 
ghastly in the starshine; its huge troughs, 
wherein the stranger had been so lately toss- 
ing, agitated by the rising wind. For it was 
the middle of the night, when the entire vil- 


A Startling Apparition 55 

lage slept, and there was something eerie in 
that suggestion of intense loneliness over- 
shadowing all things. 

■‘Sit down, all of you,” the man said at 
last, “and make place for me here at the 
fire.” 

This they did, not without a certain sense 
of relief that the speaker made no immediate 
attempt to reach the silver chest. If such 
were his intentions, or if he had any design 
upon their lives, why, even a respite was wel- 
come. He sat down in the chair which Fred 
nervously offered and gazed thoughtfully 
into the fire for some moments without 
speaking. 

The silence after a time became strained, 
and Harry, who thought it well to gain time 
and who was besides considerate for others, 
made a diversion by inquiring if their 
strange guest would like something to eat. 

“Now that you remind me, I am hungry,” 
the man replied, calmly. 

Instantly Harry and his brother were on 
their feet, moving over a small table to the 
stranger’s side and declaring that they 
would fetch some food. Fred, in his impul- 


56 The Man From Nowhere 

sive way, declared that there was a meat pie 
in the pantry. Harry stepped upon his toe, 
in a warning that came too late, and the boy 
could have bitten his tongue for the impru- 
dence of his speech. 

“Why do we not go to the pantry?’’ the 
stranger suggested genially, “that will save 
a lot of bother.” 

Fred stopped short in confusion, coloring 
deeply and exchanging glances with his 
brother and the others. The same thought 
occurred to every mind, that it was highly 
dangerous to bring the unknown to the very 
spot where the silver chest stood. Also that 
it was suspicious that he should have thrown 
out such a suggestion. The latter on his part 
observed the little by-play, and leaning back 
in his chair looked smilingly from one to 
the other as he inquired: 

“Well, what’s the matter? Has the pie 
no actual existence, or has my impulsive 
young friend here been too prodigal in his 
hospitable offers?” 

“No, oh, no,” cried Fr^, “but you needn’t 
stir. I will run and bring the pie here.” 

So saying, he was about to dart away, but 


A Startling Apparition 


57 


the man at the fire, who was likewise quick 
in his movements, intercepted him. 

“Come, come,” he cried, “why can’t I go 
with you and take a snack in the pantry?” 

“You’re tired, sir, I’m sure!” remonstrated 
Fred. 

“Not a bit.” 

“You must be stiff after being so long in 
the water!” 

“Stiff? No; one would think I was a 
grandfather.” 

Fred was at his wit’s end; he looked for 
further instructions to Harry, but that 
sagacious lad was himself nonplussed. 

“I would rather bring the things here near 
the fire,” Fred persisted. 

“Pooh! Pooh! That is being too luxuri- 
ous or too ceremonious. Lead on, I follow.” 

“No, I won’t lead on!” cried Fred, driven 
to desperation. 

The stranger looked at him curiously a 
moment; then he said: 

“Oh, very well. I can do without the 
snack a while longer. I have far too much 
respect for such a floor as this to risk spoil- 
ing it with food.” 


58 


The Man From Nowhere 


The boys stood by, awkward and sheepish. 
The Tremaines, in particular, felt that it 
was contrary to the traditions of their house 
to let a guest be hungry, and especially one 
who had passed through such an experience 
and must be very much in need of food. 
Harry, who had been thinking matters over, 
felt that his brother’s refusal was positively 
churlish, and perhaps, after all, the stranger 
meant no harm. He gave the others a glance, 
which meant that there was nothing else to 
be done, as he said apologetically: 

“Oh, if you prefer to take something to 
eat in the pantry, come there, of course. We 
are hungry ourselves, and you must be 
starved.” 

“Not quite so bad as that,” the man an- 
swered pleasantly, “but I will admit that 
the offer of food is very tempting.” 

He rose as he spoke, preparing to ac- 
company his guides. 

Harry contrived, however, to say a word 
to Paddy. “Will you mind staying here a 
while? One of us will relieve you presently. 
If you hear anything imusual give the 
alarm at once.” 


A Startling Apparition 59 

Paddy nodded and resumed his place by 
the fire. 

If the stranger caught any of these in- 
structions he gave no sign. But first, as the 
company were about to enter the pantry, 
he inquired: 

“I thought there was another boy.” 

“Yes, oh, yes,” answered Harry, con- 
fusedly. 

“Isn’t he hungry?” 

“No, that is — yes, I shouldn’t wonder!” 
blundered Harry. 

“Come, you boy,” the stranger called to 
the sentinel by the fire, who was eying his 
retreating comrades somewhat wistfully. 

“No,” responded he. 

“Why not?” 

Paddy, not thinking of any evasion, re- 
plied truthfully. 

“Because I was bid to stay here.” 

“You are a regular Casabianca!” ex- 
claimed the stranger. 

“No, I ain’t either,” retorted Paddy, not 
fancying the name. 

“What are you, then?” 

“Nothing!” 


60 


The Man From Nowhere 


“Have it your own way!” concluded the 
jester, as he entered the pantry. The others 
had fallen silent, thinking it highly suspi- 
cious that the man should wish to bring 
Paddy with them and so obviate all chance 
of an alarm being given. They edged into 
the narrow enclosure, fondly hoping to form 
a rampart about the silver chest. Then they 
began at once to ply their guest with food. 

“Gently, my dear fellows, gently,” ex- 
postulated he, “you overpower me with kind- 
ness. Just let me get a little nearer to the 
shelf and please don’t try to stand all in the 
same spot.” 

The boys, on this broad hint, had to move 
a trifle, but they still strove to maintain a 
position between the silver chest and the 
stranger. The latter closed the pantry door, 
possibly to make more room, but in the 
jaundiced minds of the boys, to cut off their 
last chance of escape; then he peered over 
Harry’s shoulder. 

“What’s that there behind you?” he in- 
quired. 

“I guess,” answered Ben Masterson, des- 
perately mendacious, “it’s a bread-box.” 


A Startling Apparition 61 

“Oh, Ben, Ben!'’ exclaimed the stranger, 
shaking a reproving finger in the boy’s face, 
“that would contain enough bread to provi- 
sion the whole village.” 

After which by a playful movement, and 
with an exertion of muscular strength, sur- 
prising in one who had been so lately ex- 
hausted, he wheeled Ben about, moved the 
other two boys aside, and thus took his place 
behind the living rampart. 

“A silver chest!” he cried, with an odd 
twinkle in his eye, “and full, no doubt, of 
the most valuable silver. Quite a treasure 
for some poor fellow of burglarious instincts. 
Meanwhile it will make an excellent seat; 
with your permission, I shall take possession 
and enjoy my supper the more.” 

So saying, he seated himself upon the sil- 
ver chest and began to partake with an ex- 
cellent appetite of the various viands which 
Hannah had left ready. The bread and 
butter, the meat pie, the salad, and some 
fresh gingerbread, were all washed down by 
copious draughts of cider. The boys at first 
stood uncertain and perplexed, but finally 
recovering from th^ir astonishment and en- 


62 


The Man From Nowhere 


couraged by his word and example, they too 
began to help themselves to the various eat- 
ables. Harry had a remorseful recollection 
of poor, hungry Paddy, sitting alone in the 
hall, and he reflected upon the best means 
of slipping out himself and relieving the 
watcher from duty. While he thus pondered, 
as if divining his thoughts, the singular guest 
suspended his operations on the food, and 
said tranquilly: 

“You may as well bring in the other boy — 
is Paddy his name ? — I assure you it is quite 
useless to keep him on sentry duty.’^ 

Harry reddened and Fred exchanged 
glances with Ben. 

“It wouldn’t avail you in any case,” the 
man continued, “and it is really too bad to 
keep him famishing for want of food.” 

So exhorted, there was nothing for Harry 
to do but to acquiesce, and before anything 
more could be said, Fred, the impulsive, 
rushed forth to seek for Paddy. Seeing his 
rapid approach, Paddy whispered tremu- 
lously: “Is the drownded man a robber? Oh, 
lave me out quick, till I give the alarm.” 

“We’re not sure!” said Fred, “but any- 


A Startling Apparition 63 

way we can’t pretend to his face that we 
think so. He suspects something as it is. 
I’ll stay here awhile, and you go into the 
pantry and get something to eat.” Now this 
was an invitation which Paddy readily ac- 
cepted, for he was, in fact, desperately 
hungry, and good things to eat did not often 
come his way. He hastened, therefore, to 
the place indicated, divided between curiosity 
and fear of the mysterious personage, whom 
he regarded almost as “a sperrit come back 
from the dead,” and who might develop, 
however, into the still more formidable char- 
acter of a burglar. 

“Hello, Casabianca!” cried the stranger, 
“so you’re off duty, and starving, I suppose. 
Well, I promise not to make any attempt 
upon the silver till your hunger is appeased.” 

Paddy’s eyes, opening very wide, fixed 
themselves upon the speaker’s face and 
wandered thence to the countenances of Ben 
and Harry, striving to read their thoughts. 
The array of victuals upon the pantry shelf, 
however, proved the most attractive of all, 
and caused the gazer’s mouth to water. 

“Come, sit down here upon the chest,” 


64 The Man From Nowhere 

continued the newly rescued, rising as he 
spoke; “its contents will be perfectly safe 
while you are seated upon the cover.” 

Paddy mechanically took the place which 
the other had vacated and also accepted from 
his hand liberal helpings of the various deli- 
cacies. In this latter office he was assisted 
by Harry, who suddenly awoke to the duty 
of hospitality and forgot his imeasiness in 
his gratification at Paddy’s evident enjoy- 
ment of the food. When Paddy had eaten 
as much as he possibly could, the man of 
mystery put his head out of the pantiy door 
and called to Fred: 

“Come in here, my lad; that sentry busi- 
ness is a farce.” 

The whisper came hoarsely, almost weird- 
ly down the hall, and Fred’s first inclination 
was to make for the door and rouse the sleep- 
ing village. But there were difficulties in the 
way of this undertaking, and the stranger’s 
eye was upon him, as he repeated the sum- 
mons in a commanding tone. Fred almost 
involuntarily obeyed, for even if he could 
have done so with any prospect of success, 
he was unwilhng to sound an alarm without 


A Startling Apparition 65 

some definite ground of suspicion. Scarcely 
had Fred entered the small enclosure, when 
the stranger closed the door and snatched 
a carving-knife from the shelf. The smaller 
boys were simply paralyzed with terror. 
They felt that their worst fears had been 
realized, and that this miscreant, having 
found entrance to the house through mis- 
taken kindness, was about to repay their 
benefactions by doing what — ? 

There was a full and deliberate pause, 
through which sounded the ticking of the 
clock in the hall, curiously distinct from the 
noise of the surf outside and the shrill cry 
of the night-bird. Then the stranger spoke 
again, this time in a terrible voice: 

“Shall I cut off all your heads, or shall 
I simply bind you and leave you here while 
I make away with the booty?” 

He looked both fierce and menacing as he 
stood before them. His singular attire, the 
ancient dressing-gown and wide trousers 
which Hannah had temporarily supplied 
him with while his own clothing had been 
drying, gave him so much the aspect of a 
pirate that even the strongest and bravest of 


66 


The Man From Nowhere 


the boys felt a beating of the heart and a 
leaping of the pulses. 

“Look here, mister!” exclaimed Ben Mas- 
terson, looking the stranger steadily in 
the eye, with a bold and resolute demeanor, 
“a joke’s a joke, but I guess you’d better 
drop that knife.” 

“How, knave?” roared the stranger. 

“Keep your names to yourself, I ain’t no 
knave,” retorted Ben, surlily, “and I tell you 
agin to drop that knife and let the silver 
alone. We’re only boys, but we ain’t goin’ 
to stand any nonsense.” 

Fred and Harry had valiantly ranged 
themselves beside Ben, forming a rampart 
once more before the chest, while Paddy 
cowered in the background, half inclined to 
whimper, and audibly wishing that the 
stranger had been left in the sea. The lat- 
ter, replying to Ben’s defiance, and advanc- 
ing upon him step by step, exclaimed: 

“You mean to say that you will prevent 
me taking the silver from the chest, and 
everything else from this house if I choose 
to do so?” 

“We’ll try to prevent you!” cried eager 


A Startling Apparition 67 

Fred. “’Cause we’re in charge of this house, 
and we brought you in here.” 

Harry, who had been watching the 
stranger closely with a dawning smile in 
his blue eyes, added, quietly: “And we know 
very well, sir, that you have no intention 
of taking the silver or anything else.” 

The stranger, dropping the knife, ex- 
tended both his hands to Harry with a ge- 
nial laugh: 

“So, you are the only one who believes in 
me,” he said, “it speaks well for your pene- 
tration, lad, for I haven’t the remotest inten- 
tion of looting anything, not even the re- 
mains of that excellent meat pie. Let us 
go and sit down by the fire and have a talk, 
since I suppose it is on my account you are 
all out of bed.” 

He laughed, and, drawing Harry’s arm 
through his own with a boyish gesture, led 
him away toward the fire. The others fol- 
lowed rather sheepishly, but the man’s cor- 
dial manner presently dispelled the last ves- 
tige of their embarrassment. 

“It was downright njean of me,” he cried, 
“to play upon your fears, and after all your 


68 The Man From Nowhere 

kindness to me, too. But I couldn’t for the 
life of me resist. You were so desperately 
in earnest and so resolved to think the worst 
of me.” 

“And,” he resumed, as he sat down 
amongst them in his former place by the fire, 
“that is a great mistake, boys. I have 
knocked about a good deal and experience 
has taught me that it is wiser to think the 
best of every one, as long as that is possible.” 

“But still,” argued Fred, who was nettled 
at the joke played upon him and his com- 
panions, “we had to take care of the silver, 
especially as we brought you here, and we 
didn’t know whether you were honest or 
not.” 

“Oh, that’s very true, and I must say that 
I admire the brave stand you took. Ben, 
there, showed the qualities of a hero, as he 
did in the life-boat, and you two stood by 
him well. And Casabianca did faithful 
sentry work. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t, if 
I were you, take it for granted that every 
unknown man you meet is a villain.” 

The boys hung their heads for a few mo- 
ments after that, and Harry, the reasoner. 


The Stranger Describes His Sensations 69 

worked out in his mind how their false con- 
clusions concerning this person and their 
fear of him had all arisen from very 
small beginnings; namely, from the idea, 
which Hannah had been the first to moot, 
and of which they had themselves in broad 
daylight declared the improbability. 


CHAPTER VII 

THE STRANGER DESCRIBES HIS SENSATIONS 

ri^HE stranger, anxious to dispel any un- 
pleasant impressions, turned the con- 
versation to other subjects and the boys 
asked him for an account of his adventures. 
Drawing in the circle, so as to be closer to 
the fire, for the night grew chillier and chill- 
ier, they set themselves to listen. They 
were too excited to feel drowsy, though 
never before had the unholy hour of two 
found them out of bed. 

‘T shall not tell you whence nor why I 
started on that expedition which ended so 
disastrously, nor how I came to find myself 


70 


The Man From Nowhere 


alone in an open boat on the sea. Nor shall 
I tell you my name. For the present, at 
least, you must be content to know me as 
the Man from Nowhere.” 

He paused, looking into the fire, then he 
added in his humorous way: 

“And you needn’t begin to imagine, as 
some of you, perhaps, are already doing, 
that my reasons are grave and weighty, that 
I was a fugitive from justice, a desperate 
villain, a defaulting bank president, or a 
discarded lover. My reasons, no doubt, 
were commonplace enough, unless, of course, 
you choose to invest me with a halo of 
romance. In that case, you may weave 
any web for me you wish. I may be 
anything from a sea-god down to Davy 
Jones himself. It is better to leave it so. 
Nothing I could say would improve mat- 
ters.” 

“It must have been awful when you found 
yourself out there,” murmured Fred, indi- 
cating by a gesture the sea, which lay restless 
and agitated under the starshine. 

“Yes, it was an awful sensation,” the 
stranger agreed, “to reahze that I was hope- 


The Stranger Describes His Sensations 71 

lessly adrift, at the mercy of the waves, my 
sail broken, my rudder useless. I can not 
express my feelings when my boat keeled 
over, and desperately, with a fierce death- 
grip, I clutched the side. After that I 
managed to gain a precarious place upon 
the slippery surface, where I maintained 
my position with the utmost difficulty. It 
was all so sudden; I had scarcely time to 
think, and then began that hopeless agony 
of suspense. Under the clear sky of heaven, 
that mocked me with its brightness, I was 
buffeted by the waves, driven shoreward, 
only to be forced relentlessly back again. 
F acing Death as a grim wrestler, who might 
at any moment throw me, I shudder still. 
I shall always shudder when I recall my 
fearful situation and the horrible swish, 
swish of the water, mingled with the distant 
breaking of the waves upon the shore. After 
the first period of stupefaction, I tore a red 
handkerchief from my neck, and managed to 
hoist it upon a broken spar, in the faint hope 
that it might be noticed. But the hope 
seemed futile, out there in that terrible waste 
of waters, so far from any human being. 


72 The Man From Nowhere 

where there were only sea and sky, only sea 
and sky.” 

He stopped abruptly, as if overcome by 
the recollection. Presently resuming: 

“I seemed a mere speck, an atom, less than 
the worm that crawls upon the earth, and 
oh, how I envied that worm. What visions 
haunted me of the warm, red earth, and the 
pleasant country sights and sounds. Even 
the pavement of city streets, the darkest and 
most squalid, seemed supremely desirable, 
so long as they were stable and did not move 
beneath me, like that horrible, restless, un- 
steady mass of boiling, tumbling waters. 
The very sunlight upon its surface was hate- 
ful; it seemed to gild the bars of the dread- 
ful dungeon that was prepared for me.” 

The speaker appeared rather to be com- 
muning with himself than addressing his 
hearers, and by pouring out his feelings, to 
relieve his mind from intolerable oppression. 

“Sometimes,” he continued, ‘T closed my 
eyes in a kind of despair, eager to shut out 
the hateful spectacle, and I strove to imagine 
that I was safe and happy ashore. I had 
a secret hope that if I must die I should 


The Stranger Describes His Sensations 73 

drift quietly over the borders into some other 
existence, without any pain or struggle upon 
my part. Again, my strained eyes wandered 
over the stretches of sea, in search of any 
hopeful token, or they were raised to the 
sky in fearful anguish. Strange sounds be- 
gan to strike upon my ears, strange visions 
to float before my eyes. At times I was sub- 
merged by an immense wave, and when I 
arose again, gasping and choking, I almost 
wished that it was all over, and that I should 
never more rise from those depths.” 

The man shuddered strongly and visibly, 
as he continued, while his listeners waited in 
awestricken silence. 

“A horror came over me of the depths of 
the sea. I pictured to myself all that I had 
ever read of those mysterious regions. The 
seaweeds, twining in dank clusters about my 
lifeless body, the sea-monsters, the mollusks, 
the polypi, fish of every size and shape, dart- 
ing about with phosphorescent gleam, eager, 
greedy, voracious. I felt as if the leaden 
eyes of the shark were already watching me, 
ready to drag me downward; and imagi- 
nation I shivered at the cold touch of the jel- 


74 


The Man From Nowhere 


ly-fish. I wondered if it would be dark 
down there in those caverns, dark, horrible, 
ghastly, while surges boomed overhead. De- 
spairingly, I thought of children playing in 
green fields — I shall always love the sight 
— and of men digging in the warm earth and 
of the smiling faces of women, happy under 
the sunlit sky.’’ 

The boys, half terrified, dared not break 
upon these awful recollections by so much 
as a syllable, and the narrator, drawing a 
long breath, proceeded: 

“By the time the life-boat had set out 
from the shore, my mind was hopelessly con- 
fused. I fancied, indeed, once or twice, that 
I heard the faint distant sound of a cheer 
and the murmur of human voices, and oh, 
lads, you shall never know, unless you are 
in danger of losing its music forever, what 
power there is in the human voice, especially 
when it vibrates upon ears sharpened by im- 
minent peril. Had not my faculties been 
thus deadened I should have hailed the sound 
as a message from the gods. On the other 
hand, but for that merciful numbness, I 
might have gone distracted with joy and 


The Stranger Describes His Sensations 75 

leaped into those yawning gulfs to meet my 
deliverers. For it was not even the fear of 
death that oppressed me so much as the hor- 
ror of the loneliness and terrible isolation in 
the depths to which I must descend. When 
the boat at last drew near, I believed it to be 
a vision, and its crew unreal shapes conjured 
up by my distorted imagination. After that 
I remember little more until the moment of 
landing, when I stepped ashore and found 
myself reeling, giddy, as an intoxicated per- 
son, upon the blessed land.” 

Harry broke the long pause that followed 
by asking, half shamefacedly, as a boy is 
apt to do, when he touches on sacred things : 

“Didn’t you say any prayers, sir, during 
that awful time?” 

“Prayers !” echoed the man, fixing a 
strange look upon the boy, “why, my lad, 
why should I pray, even if there is any one 
who can hear?” 

“Oh!” cried Harry and Fred in unison, 
their voices expressing the deepest horror, 
which Paddy supplemented by his favorite 
exclamation of “Cricky!” 

Even Ben looked grave, though he was 


76 


The Man From Nowhere 


far more accustomed than the others to 
hear such sentiments from the men about 
him, 

“Well,” said the stranger, waiving the 
last point of his discourse, when he per- 
ceived the effect it had produced on his lis- 
teners, “I had no right to call on God, if 
there be a God. It is a score of years, at 
least, since I have bent the knee.” 

“A score of years!” repeated Harry, “and 
weren’t you ever afraid at night, or when 
there was a storm?” 

“I suppose I was afraid at first, but I 
shook the feeling off or it gradually fell from 
me. I did not trouble my head much about 
the matter, but out there upon the sea it 
would have terrified me most of all to know 
that there was a God whom I had despised 
and neglected.” 

He stopped as if overcome by the force 
of a powerful emotion. His face grew posi- 
tively ghastly and an expression of terror 
came into his eyes. The boys never forgot 
that look and the change in the man’s whole 
aspect. Harry always said afterward that 
it was a lesson to him whenever he felt 


The S tr anger Describes His Sensations 77 

tempted to shirk his prayers or neglect his 
religious duties. For in that instant they 
had some inkhng of what it would be to have 
lost their faith in God. Fred fully agreed 
with his brother and even Paddy Wallace of 
the limited opportunities, talked of the mat- 
ter afterward to the others and declared that 
from that time forth he would “mind what 
the priest said and try to be a good Catho- 
lic.” Ben could not formulate his ideas upon 
such subjects, but agreed that “it was a rum 
thing to have no religion, especially if a man 
was goin’ to die.” 

The stranger did not, however, pursue 
that branch of the subject. Quite uncon- 
scious of the excellent lesson he had con- 
veyed to his hearers, he deemed it unwise 
to obtrude his own unhappy skepticism on 
these young understandings. He suddenly 
inquired instead of Fred, who sat nearest 
to him: 

“What was that I heard some of you tell- 
ing just as I came out of the room?” 

Fred hesitated and looked at Harry, who, 
after a moment’s reflection replied ; 

“I was telling Ben, because he was away 


78 


The Man From Nowhere 


in the life-boat, how the priest gave you ab- 
solution.” 

“Gave me what?” 

“Absolution. Don’t you know what that 
is?” 

“I have heard the word, but I confess I 
haven’t a very clear idea of its meaning. So 
you may as well enlighten me.” 

“The priest has power, you know,” ex- 
plained Harry, “when any one goes to con- 
fession, to absolve him, to give him absolu- 
tion.” 

“But I didn’t go to confession.” 

“No, I was going to say, though,” went 
on the boy, “that when any one goes to con- 
fession he makes an act of contrition and 
tries to be as sorry as he can for his sins, 
before the priest forgives them ; that is, gives 
absolution. If a person is in danger of death, 
the priest, on the chance that he is sorry, 
gives him conditional absolution.” 

“How could he give this thing when I 
was so far away?” persisted the skeptic. 

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” cried all the 
boys in unison, “that doesn’t matter 
a bit.” 

“It was when the waters went over you 


The S tr anger Describes His Sensations 79 

one time/' continued Harry, “everybody on 
the beach thought you were gone. Father 
McNeirny went down to the edge of the 
water and put on his stole ; it looked awfully 
solemn. Then he knelt down and said a 
prayer. After that " 

“After that,” repeated the stranger 
eagerly. 

“He raised his hands and said the words 
in Latin.” 

“What are the words?” 

‘‘Ego te absolve ah omnibus peccatis, in 
Nomine Patris^ et Filii^ et Spiritus Sancti, 
And then he said in English : ‘May the Al- 
mighty God have mercy upon you and for- 
give you your sins and bring you to everlast- 
ing life, Amen.' It was terrible. Every one 
kept still, there was only the noise of the 
waves.” 

“It sent a cold chill down my spine!” 
added Fred. 

“Golly, I was most scared to death!” 
volunteered Paddy. 

The stranger shaded his eyes with his hand : 

“Say those words again,” he begged, in a 
low, broken voice, “say them slowly that I 
may understand.” 


80 The Man From Nowhere 

And as the boy’s clear tones repeated over 
again that saying of tremendous import, 
two big tears were seen to escape from the 
man’s eyes and roll down his cheeks. 

“It was beautiful,” he exclaimed, at last, 
“that a stranger who had never seen nor 
heard of me in his life should pray hke that 
for me to the Being in whom he believes.” 
Falling silent again for a moment, he de- 
clared presently, with emphasis : 

“And he must believe, boys; he must be- 
lieve or he would never have prayed as he 
did.” 

“I don’t think you quite understand,” 
persisted Harry, “he wasn’t praying then, 
exactly; he was giving you absolution — for- 
giving you your sins by the power which 
God gives to priests.” 

“Forgiving me my sins !” the stranger re- 
peated dreamily. 

“And after that, he knelt down and 
prayed and asked all the people to pray 
that you would be saved from the sea, or 
that God would have mercy on your soul.” 

The listener sighed deeply and passed his 
hand over his forehead, as one bewildered. 


Disappearance 81 

“It is I,” he murmured to himself, “who 
seem hke an ignorant child, and these boys 
possess a wisdom to which many men never 
attain.” 

Aloud he added: 

“I must try to see this priest — one of the 
good Samaritans of yesterday — and have 
a talk with him before I leave the place.” 


CHAPTER VIII 

DISAPPEARANCE 

13 Y THAT time the dawn was whitening the 
^ east, pale streaks of light stole 
through the windows and the boys began 
to feel overpowered by drowsiness. The 
stranger then brought their vigil to an end 
by declaring that he would go out for a 
stroll upon the beach while Ben and Paddy 
wended their homeward way and Fred and 
Harry retired to bed. He laughingly as- 
sured them once more that they need not 
have the smallest apprehensions, as he har- 
bored no evil design upon the dwelling. Re- 


82 The Man From Nowhere 

tiring to the room wherein he had slept that 
trancelike sleep, he resumed his ordinary 
clothing, which Hannah had dried and re- 
placed there, and coming forth again he 
shook hands with the two Tremaines. 

“Good-by for the present, my hospitable 
hosts,” he said, “you have placed me under 
an obligation which shall last all through 
my life.” 

He held Harry’s hand a moment longer 
in his own as he added : 

“And you were the first to believe in me, 
my hoy. That is another debt which I shall 
not speedily forget.” 

“But,” cried both boys simultaneously, 
“you will come back for breakfast? We 
shall see you, again, after a while?” 

“After a while,” assented the stranger. 
Then he went out with Ben and Paddy, 
pausing at the gate, where their roads sepa- 
rated, to take leave of his companions, and 
to express to Ben in a few earnest, heart- 
felt words his lasting gratitude for the ser- 
vice he had rendered on the life-boat. This 
done, and as the two turned in the direction 
of the village the stranger went down to- 


Disappearance 83 

ward the ocean, which was touched by the 
pale streaks of light in the East, warming 
into a rosy flush that dyed the shimmering 
waters. Even its faint, tremulous beauty 
did not, however, appeal to the stranger’s 
imagination. He looked out with a shudder 
upon the smooth, treacherous expanse, 
where so lately he had agonized. Standing 
thus, he heard a step behind him. He 
turned and saw approaching a tall, strongly 
built man, clad in a plain black suit and 
wearing a straw hat. He recognized him 
with something of a shock as the Catholic 
priest who in more ways than one had ren- 
dered him efficacious service on the morning 
previous. With a sudden vivid recollection 
of the scene which the boys had so graphi- 
cally portrayed, he advanced to meet the 
newcomer, extending a hand in cordial 
greeting. 

“I believe you are Father McNeimy,” 
he said, using the essentially Catholic title 
with a genial warmth which was pleasant 
to hear. The priest looked at him a moment, 
and then started back in astonishment, ex- 
claiming: 


84 


The Man From Nowhere 


“You are surely not ” 

“What the woman up yonder called ‘the 
poor drownded man,’ ” cried the stranger, 
finishing the sentence. “I am indeed he who 
has to thank you for so many kind offices.” 

“Are you not imprudent?” Father Mc- 
Neirny responded, gravely, as he shook the 
stranger’s hand cordially. “Don’t you think 
it unwise to get up so soon, and to come 
out here in the chill of the morning?” 

“But I didn’t get up soon,” laughed the 
stranger. “I slept the whole day long and 
up to midnight, and as for the rest, I am as 
well as ever and don’t feel the slightest ill 
effect from my drenching and ‘drowning.’ ” 

“You must be very hardy,” observed the 
priest. 

“Yes, I suppose I am. I have wintered 
amidst many snows and baked under many 
suns and water has been almost my ele- 
ment.” 

He turned his eyes once more with singu- 
lar fascination to the ocean, while the same 
visible shudder shook his frame. 

“And,” he concluded, “it was very near 
being my grave this time.” 


Disappearance 85 

‘‘Yes, it was a close call,” assented Father 
McNeirny, seriously. 

For a moment there was silence, for the 
thoughts of both were dwelling on the so 
nearly tragic occurrence that had agitated 
the tranquil village by the sea. 

“Besides your great kindness after I came 
ashore,” resumed the unknown, “the boys 
up yonder have told me of another way in 
which I am indebted to you.” 

“What is that?” inquired the priest, with 
a touch of curiosity. 

“They told me how you prayed for me 
and gave me what is it — the forgiveness of 
sin?” 

“Absolution!” the priest answered with a 
smile. “Of course that was only because I 
thought you were in extremis. It should 
properly be followed now by some action 
upon your part.” 

“What action?” 

“Oh,” laughed Father McNeirny, “I am 
not going to begin a series of instructions. 
I judge from your manner of speaking that 
you are not a Catholic.” 

“No, I am not a Catholic; neither am I 


86 


The Man From Nowhere 


a Protestant, nor anything else in particular. 
Still, that rite which you practiced ” 

“You speak as if I were a magician.” 

“So you are, in a sense. For according 
to those boys you claim to exercise a tremen- 
dous power, overleaping space, greater than 
life or death. But whatever you may choose 
to call that ceremony, it has somehow im- 
pressed itself upon my imagination.” 

He stood facing the priest and speaking 
with curious earnestness. 

“I shall not soon forget,” he went on, 
“that description of your upraised hand and 
your mysterious influence, reaching out over 
that waste of waters and touching my soul 
— if I have a soul.” 

Father McNeirny laid his hand upon the 
other’s shoulder. 

“If you have a soul,” he repeated, “oh, 
never doubt it, never doubt it, the longest 
day you have to live! Look up at the sky, 
look out upon the ocean, look at nature 
everywhere, and ask if the God who created 
those things did not in some way differen- 
tiate you from the brute.” 

It was a singular scene and a still more 


Disappearance 87 

unusual conversation between the two men, 
standing thus soul to soul, as they might never 
have done imder any other circumstances, 
nor in all the chances of life. And while the 
rosy flush of morning deepened, and the ar- 
rows of the newly born light quivered into 
the depths of the sea, they remained for some 
time talking of those subjects most vital to 
mankind. The man, who had but yesterday 
come back from the grave and whose career 
had been so different, put swift searching 
questions to the cleric, the minister of relig- 
ion, who had practically given up his own 
life for his fellows. And the questions were 
answered simply and sincerely. 

The stranger was deeply impressed. He 
felt a new confidence, almost a new hope- 
fulness from his contact with this priest, who 
could speak so strongly and convincingly, 
in simple, direct speech, and with the au- 
thority which his office imparts. As the 
two shook hands in parting, the layman said, 
half laughingly: 

“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris- 
tian.” 

“Only Him by whom I am sent can do 


88 


The Man From Nowhere 


that,” Father McNeirny replied gravely. 

He found, however, many hopeful signs 
in this mysterious personage and trusted 
that he might have many future opportuni- 
ties of pursuing that first advantage. He 
said no more on the subject at the moment, 
however, but remarked instead : 

“You will feel, no doubt, rather inclined 
to keep away from the ocean for some time 
to come.” 

“I don't know,” answered the stranger, 
“it has always had a wonderful fascination 
for me. Even if I go away, it is sure to lure 
me back again. I can quite understand what 
gave rise to the old fable about the Sirens. 
Wherever I may be I am quite certain to 
hear its voices ringing in my ears and to 
feel its salt breath in my nostrils.” 

“Well, I hope you'll always have as for- 
tunate an escape,” replied the priest, 
“though never quite so narrow a one.” 

“Thanks. And don't judge me too harsh- 
ly. I might have been a Christian, and a 
good one, if only I had had the chance.” 

“It's never too late,” answered the priest, 
“bear that in mind. And now, good-by for 


Disappearance 89 

the present. I have some more sick people 
to see before breakfast and I also have to 
say my Mass.” 

“Good-by,” answered the man, and with 
a warm handshake the two parted there 
where the ocean almost drowned their voices. 

Father McNeirny, when he had gone a 
certain distance, turned and looked back, 
seeing the stranger still standing by the 
shore. The latter waved his hand, and that 
was the last the priest saw of him. For the 
stranger was missing at the breakfast hour, 
when Hannah awakened the weary boys; 
and he was missing at the dinner hour, and 
he had not yet reappeared when night had 
once more settled down upon the village. It 
almost seemed as if the sea had swallowed 
him up after all. 

Harry and Fred, Ben and Paddy and 
many another scoured the village ; there was, 
in fact, a small hue and cry. The disappear- 
ance occasioned a nine-days’ wonder. The 
Tremaines in particular and a number of 
others, including Father McNeirny, were 
disappointed, and the latter felt secretly 
alarmed at the possibility of some untoward 


90 


The Man From Nowhere 


accident. Amongst the superstitious it was 
averred that the mysterious personage had 
not really been of flesh and blood. But what- 
ever the truth of the matter, one thing was 
very certain, indeed, that the “man from 
nowhere” had apparently vanished whither 
he had come. 


BOOK II 
CHAPTER I 

FATHER MCNEIRNY’S PICNIC 

npHE village after that settled down into 
its habitual calm, the inhabitants proper 
falling into the easy jog-trot way whence 
the incident of the shipwrecked man had 
momentarily roused them, and stolidly pur- 
suing their various avocations. It is true 
that the summer visitors kept up a certain 
bustle and stir about the hotels and bathing 
places until July had given place to August 
and even that torrid month was mellowing 
toward autumn and rejoicing in cool, bright 
days. Then it was that the residents of the 
cottages, the Tremaines for instance, and 
their circle declared that the pleasantest part 
of the season was at hand and they usually 
prolonged their stay until the late October 
announced the approach of winter. 

It was precisely upon one of these delight- 
ful August days that Father McNeimy 
91 


92 


The Mmi From Nowhere 


gave his annual picnic. Many pages might 
be consumed in describing how everybody 
concerned looked forward to that event. The 
old, with the mild exhilaration of their years, 
to a festivity to which they were not only in- 
vited, but were special honored guests. The 
young girls put on their best finery, certain 
that they would meet there every eligible 
young man within miles of the place, while 
the young men were equally sure of encoun- 
tering every desirable girl in the parish. 
Parents went to look on at the enjoyment 
of their children, and the children — well, 
Father McNeirny was, by excellence, the 
children’s priest. He knew just exactly 
what every boy in the place wanted and had 
a pretty shrewd idea besides of what would 
please their sisters. 

The picnic, in fact, was always an occasion 
when young and old, rich and poor. Catho- 
lic and Protestant, thoroughly enjoyed 
themselves. It was to be held that year 
in what were known as the “big woods.” 
Their cool, dark depths, redolent of the pine, 
the sassafras, and the wild grape, were a joy 
in themselves. There, squirrels and chip- 


Father McNeirny^s Picnic 93 

munks ran riot in the enchanted solitude, 
and birds flitted about from alanthus to oak, 
from birch to juniper, singing their carols 
and adding their joyousness to the human 
festivity. 

For many days before, Father McNeirny 
and his aides were at work. These aides con- 
sisted of Fred and Harry, Ben and Paddy, 
with a few other boys of the parish. For the 
priest liked reliable fellows who could be 
trusted to finish what they undertook and 
to carry out his orders. A good-sized tent 
was erected in a clearing of the forest. Tres- 
tle tables and benches were arranged at in- 
tervals for those who did not care to sit upon 
the ground nor eat from a table-cover 
spread upon the grass. A stand was erected 
for musicians, and a space was reserved for 
games or races. In fact, nothing was neg- 
lected that could contribute to the amuse- 
ment of the guests. Father McNeirny had 
been, moreover, in conference for a couple 
of weeks before with half the housekeepers 
of the village, nearly every one of them hav- 
ing donating something of her best work- 
manship toward the supply of food. 


94 


The Man From Nowhere 


There is very little doubt, however, that 
despite their anticipations, the four trusty 
friends took an almost keener pleasure in 
the days of preparation than they did in the 
picnic itself. They were in constant con- 
sultation with Father McNeirny; like so 
many busy bees they roamed in and out of 
those pleasant woodland places, lending a 
hand here or there, or they met upon the gal- 
lery of the priest’s house, outside the kitchen 
window, to assist old Bridget in a variety of 
culinary details. They shelled nuts for the 
nut-cake or candy, they cut orange peel into 
strips, they blanched almonds, they beat up 
eggs and weighed sugar, and they finally 
helped to pack the good things and to trans- 
port them to the festive scene. 

At last the momentous day arrived. Al- 
most every household was astir at peep of 
dawn, anxiously verifying the predictions of 
the previous evening — the red sunset, the 
clear sky, the bright stars — with regard to 
the weather. Fred Tremaine, emerging 
from the villa, gave a wild “hurrah,” which 
was presently echoed by his more phlegmatic 
brother, and by Paddy Wallace, who was 


Father McNeirny's Picnic 95 

already on the lawn with a message from 
Father McNeirny. Fred seized the mes- 
senger and waltzed him up and down, cry- 
ing: 

“It’s going to be fine! It’s going to be 
fine!” 

“You bet!” agreed Paddy. “There ain’t 
been a finer day this season.” 

“Isn’t it splendid!” ejaculated Fred, “if 
it had been raining, I think I’d have gone 
back to bed and stayed there.” 

“You look mighty fine, Paddy!” said 
Harry. And Paddy looked with compla- 
cency down at his checked suit, supple- 
mented on this occasion by shoes and stock- 
ings. 

“Father McNeirny give me the clothes,” 
he said, complacently, “they’re most as good 
as new.” 

The boys turned him round and sur- 
veyed his new acquisitions admiringly, en- 
tering into his gratification in a quite fra- 
ternal spirit. 

“The others were rather ragged,” Harry 
admitted. 

“I tried to put on patches,” Paddy ex- 


96 


The Man From Nowhere 


plained, “kase my aunt’s too blind to sew, 
but I didn’t git them right. The one in the 
knee twisted me so I couldn’t walk.” 

“I once tried putting on a patch at the 
college,” Fred agreed, with ready sympathy, 
“but I couldn’t move at all till I got it off.” 

“Anyway, it burst,” Harry added, remi- 
niscently, “it’s only women or tailors can get 
patches right. But what did Father Mc- 
Neirny send you for?” 

“The loan of another big basket,” Paddy 
answered. “I have to bring it over to his 
house.” 

“I’ll get one from Hannah,” cried Fred, 
rushing round to the back of the house, 
where the housekeeper was helping the cook 
to pack in a hamper the villa’s contribution 
to the picnic. 

“Father McNeirny wants a basket,” 
cried Fred, putting his head in at the kitchen 
window. 

“Sure we’re gettin’ it ready as quick as 
we can,” replied the cook. 

“He wants an empty one.” 

“Does he, then?” cried the cook, with a 
wink at her colleague. “If I’d known that a 


Father McNeirny's Picnic 97 

week ago, I might have spared myself a 
heap of work. Mebbe it’s better to take the 
things out, Hannah.” 

“Oh,” said Fred, who failed to see the 
joke, “don’t do that. Of course he wants 
the meat and cakes and pies, but he’d like 
the loan of another basket.” 

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried the cook, pre- 
tending to be relieved, while Hannah, less 
facetiously inclined, bustled into the cup- 
board and brought forth a large two-lidded 
basket. 

“I’ll tell you what,” declared the house- 
keeper, as she delivered this through the 
window to Fred, “if I don’t get that basket 
back again I’ll raise Cain.” 

“How will you do that, Hannah?” called 
back Fred, already in motion with the bas- 
ket and quite indifferent to her threats. 

“Never you mind how I’ll do it!” Han- 
nah shouted after him, “but keep your eyes 
on that basket and tell Bridget yonder to 
send it back to-night.” 

Fred promised and ran off whistling to 
join his comrades, who cheerfully lent a 
hand with the basket and together they con- 


98 The Man From Nowhere 

veyed it to Father McNeirny’s house, where 
the priest and Ben were already at work. 

Who can ever describe a picnic — or any 
other red-letter day, for the matter of that? 
So much depends upon individual impres- 
sions, and how is it possible, for instance, to 
express the sweetness of the summer woods 
and all that they suggest. That sylvan soli- 
tude was at its best on the particular morn- 
ing when Father McNeirny and the boys ar- 
rived there, before the appearance of any of 
the guests. The air was full of aromatic 
odors, the grasses were stirred by a gentle 
breeze, and through the interlacing tree-tops 
the sun relieved the twihght. Nor can the 
various features of that merry-making be set 
down in these pages, since they would in 
themselves fill a good-sized volume. Suffice 
it to say that the picnic was altogether a 
success. 

The viands, to which were added the pro- 
verbially excellent sauce of an appetite 
sharpened by the sea-air, were perfect. 
Turkeys, chickens, hams, cold beef and 
tongue, meat pies and salads, were supple- 
mented by jellies and creams and flaky 


Father McNeirny's Picnic 99 

pastry and delicious cakes; candy and nuts 
abounded, crowned by the ever popular ice- 
cream. The music was both lively and in- 
spiriting, the host truly a host in himself — 
through his thoughtful consideration for 
others, his self-effacement and his genial 
good humor. 

The company was for the most part a con- 
genial one, upon which circumstance depends 
more than half the pleasure of a social gath- 
ering. The “grown-ups” formed themselves 
into pleasant groups, or went wandering 
about in the sylvan coolness and freshness, 
resounding now with sounds of talk and 
laughter. The trees and their feathered 
tenants heard, no doubt, many a happy se- 
cret, for several engagements dated from 
that day and banns were called in church 
as a result of the picnic. 

The boys and girls had, however, the best 
of the fun, and fairly exhausted the means 
of enjoyment. Some of the more imagina- 
tive, amongst whom may be counted at least 
three of our acquaintances, that is to say, 
Harry and Fred and Paddy, found them- 
selves assuming some half a dozen charac- 


100 The Man From Nowhere 

ters during the course of those long, bright 
hours. They were alternately travelers lost 
in a desert, suddenly coming upon over- 
loaded tables, or bears, finding nuts and 
other provisions in hollow trees. Now, they 
were hunters seeking game, or robbers 
springing out upon unwary wayfarers, and 
bringing them to fastnesses in the depths of 
the wood. Ben, being rather too much 
grown-up and too prosaic for such pursuits, 
lent his strength and practical good sense 
to the games that depended upon muscle. 

That feature of the occasion which forms 
a link with the incidents of this narrative 
was a quiet hour in the afternoon, when the 
various groups sat resting under the trees, 
with the priest in their midst as a central 
figure. The conversation turned, as it 
chanced, upon wishing, and it was jestingly 
suggested that those present should severally 
or individually put their wishes upon record, 
and a secretary was actually chosen for the 
purpose. He seated himself upon the stump 
of a tree, prepared to jot down whatever 
should be suggested. Most of the older 
people either treated the matter as a joke. 


Father McNeirny's Picnic 101 

refusing to express their preferences, or 
formed a combination representing the pub- 
lic good. Thus many graybeards, ably sup- 
ported by their womenkind, were of opinion 
that a town hall was a necessity for the vil- 
lage, and that such hall should afford a 
meeting-place and recreation room especial- 
ly for the young men. This unanimous 
opinion was put into the form of a resolution 
by Father McNeirny, and so recorded by 
the secretary: 

“A motion has been unanimously carried 
by this company that a town hall, with its 
proper accompaniments of a reading-room 
and library, is imperatively required, and 
that whenever blind Fortune may choose to 
transmute wishes into solid cash, this pro- 
ject shall materialize.” 

After that, amid great laughing and 
joking, several individuals caused their 
wishes to be inscribed, though many declared 
that it would do just as well to whisper them 
to the trees. Some, however, were explicit. 
Ben Masterson, for instance, wished for a 
complete and modern set of fishing-tackle, 
Fred for a tool-chest, Harry for a new 


102 


The Man From Nowhere 


watch and Paddy for a few dollars to spend 
as he chose. The popular voice finally called 
upon Father McNeirny, and in response to 
a tumultuous demand from the boys to make 
a request, he finally acceded. 

“If wishing were having and beggars 
might ride,” laughed he, “there would be a 
heap of things to wish for in this parish, but 
as we are only allowed one wish. I’ll say a 
set of vestments.” 

“A set of vestments,” echoed the boys, 
“write that down.” 

“Let them be white,” added Father Mc- 
Neirny, “for it will be a white feast when the 
bishop comes to officiate in the fall. Those 
we have are a disgrace to any congregation 
and might well be changed for the better, if 
fairies were in existence or if the trees of 
this wood were enchanted.” 

Just as he spoke, the shrill cry of a bird, 
apparently disturbed in its nest, caused 
everybody to start, and Paddy Wallace to 
utter a frightened exclamation. 

“Did you think it was a fairy, Paddy?” 
inquired the priest, with an indulgent smile, 
“instead of a poor, frightened little bird?” 

“I thought it was something'" Paddy an- 


Father McNeirny^s Picnic 103 

swered with a nervous glance over his 
shoulder, “and Cricky! what’s that?” 

“What’s what?” every one asked. But 
Paddy could only say that he thought he saw 
a shadow, and his explanation was greeted 
with a laugh. The bird, meanwhile, still ut- 
tering sharp cries, flew away amongst the 
foliage, and a silence fell upon the company. 
The wishing was not resumed, and the pa- 
per, falling idly from the secretary’s hand, 
must have been carried away by the light 
breeze that stirred the foliage. For the 
scribe, seeking it presently, found that it 
had disappeared. A feeling of uneasiness 
began to manifest itself amongst the guests, 
though jio one could have told why, especial- 
ly as they were startled soon after by several 
crashing sounds not far away. 

A few of the younger men proposed to 
search the woods, but Father McNeirny 
laughed the matter off, declaring that no one 
ever went in search of fairies or hobgoblins. 
His own private opinion was that some 
tramp might be hovering near, and he did 
not wish his picnic to be marred by any un- 
pleasantness, even though caused by a for- 
lorn wretch who might be lingering about to 


104 


The Man From Nowhere 


pick up what crumbs might be left over 
from the feast. 

He set the Tremaine boys, with Ben and 
Paddy, talking about a crabbing expedition 
for the morrow, which had been previously 
proposed, and which was to take place in 
what was locally known as Norton’s Creek. 
Their idea was to go there very early in the 
morning, after a hasty breakfast, and, if 
the sport was good, to continue until noon 
or even later. Our four acquaintances be- 
coming absorbed in this fascinating topic, 
and discussing the pros and cons with eager- 
ness, other groups were formed where other 
interests were uppermost, until the shadows 
began to fall and the picnic itself came to an 
end. For its numerous guests felt impelled 
to turn their steps homeward before dark. 
There was great shaking of hands, cordial 
thanks to Father McNeirny and farewells 
as heartfelt as if all were not to meet on 
the morrow, in precisely the same old groove. 
And so the woods were left dark and still, 
save for the soft whispering of the leaves, 
the vesper song of the birds and the in- 
sects chirping and droning at the dying of 


The Crabbing Expedition 105 

the day. Only one human face after that 
appeared in the dusk and one pair of eyes 
looked upon the scene of the late festivity 
and its scattered remnants. 


CHAPTER II 

THE CRABBING EXPEDITION 

l^RED and Harry were up very early and 
^ out in the fresh morning air, delightedly 
sniffing up the salt breeze from the sea. They 
met Ben and Harry, who were waiting 
outside the gate, and together they pro- 
ceeded to the scene of their anticipated sport. 
This was a clear and sparkling stream, 
running under what was locally known as 
Norton’s Bridge. Each boy was provided 
with a crab-net attached to a long pole and 
a basket which he hoped to fill with a goodly 
share of the spoil. Each made a special 
toilet for the occasion, or more properly 
speaking, he partially disrobed, under the 
spreading branches of a forest monarch 
popularly designated “the umbrella tree.” 


106 The Man From Nowhere 

It stood alone and distinct from the sur- 
rounding woodlands, and its leafy boughs 
spread out to a considerable distance, almost 
touching the ground on every side. Within 
the retreat thus formed was a carpet of soft 
green moss, pleasant to the feet, when the 
young sportsmen, save Paddy, who was al- 
ready barefoot, had removed their shoes and 
stockings. 

They rolled up their trousers to the knee 
and divested themselves of collars and neck- 
ties, turning up their sleeves to the elbow. 
Leaving these superfluous articles of dress 
in the impromptu dressing-room, they took 
up positions at various points upon the 
bridge, so that they might not interfere with 
one another’s operations. 

They were very soon absorbed in their 
attack upon the crustaceans, which now 
eluded every effort, and again were triumph- 
antly bagged by one or other of their ene- 
mies. Sometimes a boy in his excitement 
descended to the creek, wading out knee- 
deep at some particular crisis. Fred in par- 
ticular was disposed to pursue the game 
with nervous eagerness into its stronghold. 


The Crabbing Eccpedition 107 

though not always with the happiest results. 
Once he cut his foot severely upon a broken 
shell, another time his toe was caught by one 
of the wily creatures he sought, and only 
with the greatest difficulty and several re- 
peated blows was it induced to relax the 
vicelike grasp of its tenacious claw. He 
hopped out to the shore, in fact, carrying 
his foe with him, which was a certain, but 
not altogether pleasant method of catching 
a crab. Harry, meantime, stood upon the 
bridge in placid patience and filled his bas- 
ket. 

Paddy was so restless and impatient that 
— as Ben very strenuously and frequently 
informed him — he scared away the prey by 
his tugs and jerks and the continual shift- 
ing of his position. Ben was a great success 
at the business. He was, in fact, an expert 
at all kind of fishing, having had continual 
practice since boyhood. His eye was quick, 
his hand was sure and he wielded the net 
with such dexterity as to make a haul with 
almost every attempt. When need offered, 
he, too, went down boldly into the water, 
advancing to the very center of the stream. 


108 The Man From Nowhere 

But he moved cautiously and noiselessly, 
avoiding obstacles and planting a wary foot 
out of reach of the foe. 

When the sport was at its height, Harry 
Tremaine fancied that he heard a rustling in 
a clump of small trees just behind where 
he stood and beyond which grew the um- 
brella-tree in majestic isolation. Mindful 
of the articles of clothing that had been left 
in the latter’s shelter, he temporarily aban- 
doned his station on the bridge and rushed 
into the thicket. He found everything silent 
there, however, as well as under their favor- 
ite tree, and he returned once more to the 
crabs. He looked a trifle grave, though, 
for his ear was true and quick and he was al- 
most certain that he could not have been al- 
together mistaken. 

“What are you rushing about like that 
for?” Fred inquired. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” retorted 
Harry, not caring to enter into explanations 
and plunging his net once more into the 
stream. 

“Did you hear anything?” Ben inquired, 
after a pause. 


The Crabbing Expedition 109 

Harry was forced to admit that he 
thought he had heard something. 

“Great Scott!” cried Paddy, tremulously, 
“I guess it’s the same thing we heard at the 
picnic!” 

“Well, Sonny, what was that?” jeered 
Ben, “a chipmunk or a polecat?” 

Harry offered no comment on that re- 
mark, but he could not help thinking that 
neither on that occasion nor the present had 
the sound resembled that made by so small 
an animal. Ben, who had a respect for 
Harry’s judgment and knew he was not 
subject to vain alarms, presently addressed 
him with a shade of gravity in his tone. 

“I guess mebbe it was old Norton’s dog 
as you heard jest now.” 

“Perhaps it was,” Harry answered, la- 
conically. j 

“You didn’t see nothin’?” 

“No.” 

“Are you sure our clothes are all right?” 
asked Fred.” 

“Yes, I went to see.” 

Being satisfied upon this point, the whole 
four returned to their warfare against the 


110 


The Man From Nowhere 


crabs, though Paddy thenceforth gave them 
a divided attention and cast many a timor- 
ous glance toward the dark clump of trees. 
So fascinating was the sport, however, to 
the boys, that the hour of noon had long 
passed before they bethought themselves of 
sundry slices of bread and butter which they 
had brought in a basket. The keen tonic 
of the sea air on that delightful morning had 
so sharpened their appetites that they re- 
gretted not having provided themselves with 
more substantial food. Hannah, with prov- 
ident forethought, had offered to prepare a 
luncheon, but the boys, fresh from an ex- 
cellent breakfast, had rejected the offer, de- 
claring that they did not want to burden 
themselves with large packages. They sat 
down on the pebbly bank of the stream and 
let the water ripple over their feet and 
bathed their heated faces, for the sun was 
beginning to be hot. Then they retired to 
the coolness of their leafy retreat, to rest 
upon the mossy carpet and eat their meager 
supply of food. 

“Weren’t we fools to refuse Hannah’s 
offer!” said Fred, disconsolately, after he 


The Crabbing Expedition 111 

had eaten his allotted two pieces of bread 
and butter. “I could kick myself for being 
such a silly. But I thought, perhaps, we 
would be going back early, or that anyway 
we wouldn’t be so hungry.” 

“It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” de- 
clared Harry, philosophically, “and if we 
get too hungry, we can go home sooner.” 

“And leave all those crabs there!” cried 
Fred, scornfully. 

“If you had been fishin’ as I’ve been for 
so many years,” put in Ben, “mostly to gain 
a livin,’ you’d know what it is to be hungry.” 

“I guess you would,” chimed in Paddy, 
“lots o’ times I had to go to bed almost 
starvin’.” 

“We ought to be ashamed to grumble, 
we’re a pair of duffers,” Harry exclaimed, 
and Fred, to do him justice, fully agreed 
with the sentiment. He lay back upon the 
moss, with a brave determination to utter no 
further complaint, when all of a sudden his 
eye was caught by an object dangling from 
one of the lower branches of the tree. At 
the same moment Paddy described it and 
pointed with tremulous finger. 


112 


The Man From Nowhere 


“What’s that?” he asked, in a hoarse whis- 
per. 

“It looks like a basket!” answered Fred. 

“Where?” inquired the other two, and 
there was a breathless pause as the whole 
four became simultaneously convinced that 
it was indeed a basket. At first, they felt 
inclined to let it severely alone. It seemed 
portentous and almost weird that it should 
thus mysteriously have appeared before 
their eyes. 

“It wasn’t up there when we left our things 
here,” declared Fred, “for I remember look- 
ing up into the branches and thinking what 
a jolly old tree this is.” 

Harry made no remark. He somewhat 
uncomfortably remembered the rustling he 
had heard. 

“I reckon,” said Ben at last, “that we’d 
best take it down.” 

He spoke softly, as though the basket 
were a sentient thing and could hear. 

“No!” cried Paddy, trembling, “let’s leave 
it and git away from here.” 

This course of action was, however, over- 
ruled by the majority. They sat still on 


The Crabbing Eoopedition 113 

the velvet green of the sward, in a stillness 
that was broken only by the chirp of insects 
and the song of birds, eyeing the basket 
doubtfully. After the stillness had lasted 
for several minutes, Harry began, thought- 
fully, and in a low voice, as if he feared a 
listener: 

“Do you know, fellows, it always seems to 
me that the village has never been quite the 
same since that morning when we were dig- 
ging the tunnel and saw the overturned boat 
in the ofBng.” 

“That’s right!” assented Ben, “I kinder 
feel that way myself.” 

“I wonder where that man disappeared 
to,” exclaimed Fred, looking carefully 
around him as he spoke. 

“I guess he went back into the sea!” sug- 
gested Paddy, tremulously, “folks say he 
come up out of there.” 

“He wouldn’t have needed a boat in that 
case,” objected Harry. 

“I don’t believe in any of that stuff, of 
course!” declared Fred, “but I wonder 
where he went. I think he might have said 
good-by.” 


114 The Man From Nowhere 

“He did say good-by,” reminded Harry. 

“Oh, in a kind of a way,” growled Fred, 
“but he didn’t tell anybody he was going.” 

“It was a rum way of sneakin’ out of the 
village,” agreed Ben. 

After that there was silence, and all eyes 
were fixed upon the basket. 

At last Ben observed, tentatively, looking 
at Harry: 

“It ’pears to me as how we oughter look 
in that basket.” 

Harry nodded assent and Fred, who was 
always ready for action, jumped to his feet, 
and, standing on tip-toe, made two or three 
ineffectual efforts to reach the basket. But 
jump as he might his fingers barely touched 
the coveted object and set it swaying to and 
fro, like the pendulum of a clock. Then Ben 
interposed. 

“If you go monkeyin’ round like that, 
Fred,” he said, “you’ll bring the thing down 
on your head and mebbe break something. 
I’ll go and get a stick.” 

He brought back a stout, gnarled branch 
of oak from the neighboring thicket, and 
securely hooked the prize. He drew it down 


The Crabbing Expedition 115 

slowly and cautiously, as if it might contain 
a deadly torpedo. The others watched the 
operation silently, and stood grouped about 
in an impressive silence after it had been 
brought to earth. It was Harry who finally 
raised the cover, in his careful way, while 
the others watched with straining, eager eyes 
for the first glimpse of the contents. He 
put in his hand and brought forth a card, 
whereon was inscribed: 

“To the Crabbers.” 

A feeling of awe stole over the group as 
Harry read those words aloud. By whom 
could they have been written? No one even 
knew that they were coming there, save 
some of the villagers, and they would cer- 
tainly not proceed in any such whimsical 
fashion. Paddy was ready to cry and felt 
very much like running away. It is possible 
that the others had something the same incli- 
nation. But bolder counsels prevailed, and 
curiosity overcame fear. It was Fred’s hand 
that time which penetrated the mysterious 
recesses of the basket, taking thence a 
snow-white napkin. After that the delicious 
odor emanating from the basket urged all 


116 The Man From Nowhere 

four to the search, and the hungry boys, 
including the timorous Paddy, were pres- 
ently on their knees beside Fred. One held 
open the lid, while the others brought forth 
in quick succession a cold chicken, several 
slices of jellied tongue, bread buttered with 
delicious fresh butter, a chunk of fruit-cake, 
and a blueberry pie. The last lingering 
doubt or scruple was removed by the sharp- 
ness of their appetites, and seated com- 
fortably under the overspreading branches 
of the umbrella tree, the crabbers enjoyed 
this delightful repast which an unknown 
hand had prepared for them. 


CHAPTER III 

ANOTHER MYSTERY 

rpHE boys, by Father McNeirny’s advice, 
kept this mysterious happening pretty 
much to themselves. He held that nothing 
was to be gained by noising it abroad and 
that some mischief might be done, especially 
to timorous people. And if the matter had 


Another Mystery 117 

ended there, the lads, with the happy care- 
lessness of youth, would probably have for- 
gotten all about it themselves. Very soon 
again, however, an unusual occurrence came 
to startle them into remembrance. 

One day, a week or two after the episode 
of the umbrella tree, Paddy came running 
at full speed to tell the Tremaines that a 
shoal of bluefish was coming in and that 
Ben would take them out in his boat. This 
was joyful news, and it brought not only 
our two acquaintances, but almost the entire 
male population of the village to the shore. 
Such a busy scene as it was; boats of all 
sizes, from the handsomely rigged yacht 
down to the poorest apology for a sail-boat, 
were being made ready, while the beach 
fairly swarmed with baskets, boxes, hand- 
carts, in preparation for the abundant har- 
vest that was expected from the sea. The 
men themselves presented a motley appear- 
ance, clad in thir oldest clothes, redolent of 
the brine, or covered with tarpaulins. Every 
known species of fishing tackle was in evi- 
dence, bait in the shape of worms or tiny 
fish were being hawked about by barefooted 


118 


The Man From Nowhere 


boys, for the benefit of those who were not 
provided with newer ajjpliances. 

The day was cloudy, which was a fortunate 
thing, since it was universally conceded that 
fish would bite more easily under gray skies 
than in the sunshine. Every sign was pro- 
pitious. The minnows and other small fry 
hurried shoreward, pursued, as was attested 
by circle upon circle in the deeper water, by 
voracious enemies. Occasionally the shin- 
ing scales of a bluefish became apparent to 
eager eyes. 

Ben was already in his boat, which he 
shared with an old salt who had spent many 
years in the deep-sea fisheries and could tell 
thrilling yarns of stormy weather off Cape 
Hatteras or along the Newfoundland coast. 
The three late-comers were hurried aboard, 
the sails were set and away flew the little 
vessel in a spanking breeze, over the glassy 
surface of the inlet. As the surface of the 
water grew rougher, and the vessel began 
to lurch from side to side, Fred and Harry 
shrieked with delight, especially when they 
found themselves drenched by spray. 

The serious business of the day once be- 


Another Mystery 119 

gun, however, they were admonished by 
Ben and his taciturn partner to preserve an 
absolute silence, and were also instructed in 
the right use of the tackle. Fishing is a 
cruel sport, with many repellent features to 
the sensitive-minded, but when since the 
world began could its fascinations be re- 
sisted ! The moment of expectancy, the pull 
upon the line and the trembling, eager de- 
light with which the youthful fisher draws 
in his prey. When the fishing is poor, that 
delight is all too seldom experienced, but on 
this occasion the boat was fairly surrounded 
by eager and omnivorous mouths, only too 
ready to bite. 

In fact, the experienced ones — including 
Paddy Wallace, who was, in a small way, 
an expert — could scarcely pull in their lines 
fast enough. In a short space of time every 
available receptacle and even the fioor of the 
boat was filled with the squirming creatures, 
whose white fiesh and gleaming scales con- 
trasted with their sides of slaty blue, whence 
they derived their name. 

Of course, the boat which contained our 
four acquaintances was not the only one 


120 


The Man From Nowhere 


upon the fishing-ground. The main was 
presently alive with craft of every design, 
all intent on making what havoc they might 
amongst the finny tribes. It was an ani- 
mated, picturesque scene, which would have 
afforded an excellent model for a marine 
painter, and it was one of unmitigated en- 
joyment to the fishers without exception, in 
addition to the profits that were to be reaped 
by sending the catch post-haste to the mar- 
kets of New York and Brooklyn. 

None of them all were more enthusiastic 
than Fred Tremaine, who vowed that he 
would like to forsake college and city life 
in general to follow the calling of a fisher- 
man. He was less successful, nevertheless, 
than Harry as an angler, because he was too 
hurried and abrupt in his movements and in- 
clined to jerk his line. This caused him fre- 
quently to lose his bite, or to break or en- 
tangle his line. Surmounting all these dif- 
ficulties, he was finally enabled to make a 
very tolerable showing, when the sun began 
to go down, and it was deemed advisable 
to put ashore. 

Ben and his partner landed the Tre- 


Another Mystery 121 

maine boys as near as possible to the villa, 
together with the baskets containing their 
respective share of the spoils. With a genu- 
ine sigh of regret that that glorious day’s 
outing was over, the boys watched the boat 
sail away spectral in the gray, misty twi- 
light, which suddenly merged into living 
gold. The mist itself grew transparent as 
a radiant veil, overspreading the heavens 
and transforming the sea into a luminous 
plain. 

Side by side, the two drank in great 
whiffs of the briny air, which seemed more 
than ever redolent of salt. Then they ran 
up to the house to get the assistance of 
Mike the coachman in transporting thither 
the heavy baskets of fish. They had no hesi- 
tation in leaving the fish where it had been 
landed, for apart from the fact that the 
villagers were mostly honest, every one in 
the vicinity was abundantly supplied on 
that particular afternoon with bluefish. 

Mike procured a hand-cart and accom- 
panied them at once to the spot. Even in 
that brief interval the light had faded, and 
the shades of evening were falling thickly. 


122 The Man From Nowhere 

It was a lonely part of the beach; there 
was not a living soul to be seen and scarce 
a sound to be heard, save a moaning wind, 
the swish-swish of the ebb-tide on the sand. 
As the baskets were being lifted into the 
hand-cart, something in their aspect caught 
the attention of the boys. They could have 
sworn that they were not as full as when 
removed from the boat, and that two or 
three large fish, at least, had been ab- 
stracted. 

Mike laughed at the notion and could 
not be convinced, at first, that the baskets 
were not precisely as they had been left. 
When the boys, however, persisted in de- 
claring that the contents of each basket had 
been overlapping, piled up and running 
over, the landsman began to look grave. 

“Sarves you right,” he grumbled, “for 
leaving them here alone. Why didn’t one 
of you stop to watch them, instead of both 
trapesing up to the house after me.” 

The boys made no answer. In fact, their 
attention was attracted at that moment by 
something else. This was a large, distinct 
footprint. On examination, there were 


Another Mystery 128 

found to be a series of footprints evidently 
belonging to a large man. They came from 
the direction opposite to the village, paused 
beside the baskets and returned upon the 
same trail. 

“Who can it be?” whispered Fred, look- 
ing around him, and Harry, somewhat un- 
necessarily, replied in a mystified fashion 
that he didn’t know. 

“It’s some tramp or another prowlin’ 
about in the dusk,” declared Mike, “and 
I’m thinkin’ the sooner you get back to the 
house the better.” 

The boys acted upon this suggestion, pro- 
ceeding thoughtfully, with many a back- 
ward glance, as they aided Mike to push 
the hand-cart upward and onward. The 
beach remained, however, undisturbed by 
any human presence. It was almost weird 
in its loneliness, the water dark and dreary, 
with no light of any sort to relieve its gloom. 
The mystery, the melancholy of the sea, 
seized upon their youthful imaginations, cold 
and chilly as a sea-mist, and mild and gro- 
tesque fancies filled their minds. Who 
could have come thus silently and unob- 


124 


The Man From Nowhere 


served, to steal their fish, and to glide away 
again in impalpable darkness? 

The very neighborhood of the ocean sug- 
gests awesome legends, gruesome tales told 
by night at forecastles, and conjures up a 
host of unreal phantoms, who float through 
all its narratives. 

Hannah and the other servants at the villa 
were so alarmed by the occurrence that they 
were in favor of sending forthwith for the 
village constable and a posse of men to guard 
the house from attack. But as no one partic- 
ularly relished the idea of taking a long, 
lonely walk in search of those worthies, the 
matter resolved itself into a committee of 
inspection. The fastenings of every door 
and window were examined, an alarm-bell, 
long disused, was put into commission, ready 
to be rung at a moment’s notice, the watch- 
dog was beguiled to take up an unac- 
customed and unsolicited position on the 
hearth-rug in the dining-room, where he evi- 
dently felt uncomfortable and sniffed about 
him suspiciously, as if to inquire the mean- 
ing of this departure from all conventions. 
In fact, it is probable that his canine intelli- 


Another 3Iystery 125 

gence was far more occupied with solving 
this problem than with looking out for pos- 
sible marauders. Long after his philo- 
sophic acceptance of necessary evils had in- 
duced him to compose his anxious spirit into 
a sleep on the comfortable hearth-rug, Han- 
nah and her assistants, assembled in con- 
clave, started at every creaking of door or 
window in the wind that blew shoreward, at 
imaginary steps on the gravel, or other 
alarming sounds. Fred and Harry were 
kept in a nervous tension; together with 
Mike, who had consented to defer his home- 
going, they were put forward as defenders 
of the household. 

The dog, too, was frequently roused from 
sleep and invited to bark, his attention be- 
ing forcibly drawn to noises that his superior 
sagacity informed him had nothing to do 
with tramps or housebreakers. In fact, he 
maintained a dignified and undisturbed 
composure, except once, when the combined 
efforts of the alarmed domestics succeeded 
in turning his activities in the wrong di- 
rection. Starting to his feet, he espied a 
housemaid who chanced to be a newcomer. 


126 


The Man From Nowhere 


and immediately chased her out of the room. 

This perverted zeal on the part of the 
animal, who had at last got it into his head 
that he was expected to take some measures, 
led to a series of mishaps. Fred, mshing 
about to catch the dog, collided with Han- 
nah, who tottered, very nearly fell, and in 
righting herself threw down the cook. This 
caught the attention of the bewildered beast, 
and eluding Fred, he flew toward the pros- 
trate flgure, believing that here was an op- 
portunity to distinguish himself. Happily 
he recognized this new adversary in time as 
one to whom he was indebted for sundry 
savory morsels, and he paused, playfully 
wagging his tail beside her. Quite misun- 
derstanding her groans and exclamations, he 
supposed that she was prepared to engage in 
a gambol over the floor. By good fortune 
the cook was uninjured and did not bear 
malice, though she addressed a few sharp 
words of remonstrance to Hannah: 

“You big omadhaun of a woman! Can’t 
you look where you’re going?” 

While Mike indulged in a hearty and 
unrestrained guffaw, Fred and Harry were 
engaged in an unequal struggle to suppress 


Another Mystery 127 

their laughter. They pohtely raised the 
cook to her feet and strove to reassure the 
frightened housemaid. The latter dechned 
to re-enter the apartment while that “savage 
beast” remained there, but hovered about 
the door, afraid to remain alone in any other 
portion of the house. The “savage beast,” 
however, convinced that he had done his 
duty in creating a disturbance, as appeared 
to be the popular will, lay down again upon 
his hearth-rug and went to sleep. 

With the morning light, however, the noc- 
turnal tremors and anxieties came to an end, 
and their recurrence was prevented by a dis- 
covery made by the boys. This was while 
overhauling their catch of the preceding 
day and choosing a couple of fish for break- 
fast. Attached to the side of each basket 
from which the fish had been abstracted on 
the previous night, was a bill, a good, old 
familiar greenback. United States currency, 
and a line explaining that it was in payment 
for what had been taken. The astonishment 
of the finders may be more readily imagined 
than described, and the news of this strange 
occurrence flew about the village like wild- 
fire and gave rise to every sort of conjecture. 


CHAPTER IV 


A MUNIFICENT GIFT 

T he village was allowed to settle down 
into its jog-trot for a full fortnight 
after that, until autumn was beginning to 
steal a march upon summer. There were 
hints of decay in the woods, a touch of 
melancholy in the deeper tints of the sky, 
and a dull, russet brown was fast replacing 
the green of the wayside grasses. 

One morning the Tremaine boys went 
over to the station to see their uncle off and 
to witness the arrival of the morning train 
from the city. After it had come in puffing 
and steaming, the brothers interested them- 
selves in the various arrivals and in the ex- 
press, which was unloaded by a couple of 
busy porters. Amongst the collection of 
boxes and barrels, they discovered a large 
case addressed to Father McNeirny and 
stopped at the rectory on the way home to 
inform him of the circumstance. There they 
encountered Paddy Wallace, who had just 
brought a load of gravel for the garden 
128 


A Munificent Gift 129 

path. His cart being now empty, he of- 
fered to go out at once and get the box, and 
Fred volunteered to accompany him. Father 
McNeirny could not form the slightest idea 
of what the case contained. He had ordered 
nothing and expected nothing. Harry Tre- 
maine remained behind at the rectory with 
his clerical friend, who was much amused at 
the boy’s eager curiosity and ill-restrained 
impatience. 

“We’ll see; we’ll see presently,” he said, 
“have patience, old fellow. I never knew 
you to be so fidgety before. Take up a book 
and read a chapter. It’s the best way to 
pass the time.” 

“I couldn’t fix my thoughts upon it,” con- 
fessed Harry, “it’s no use trying.” 

“Well, sit down here at the table and 
help me to count the Sunday collection.” 

“All right. Father,” agreed Harry, glad 
of an occupation. 

“Put the pennies into piles by them- 
selves,” directed the priest, “and I’ll take 
the silver. I won’t be very long counting 
that/^ 

After the first few busy moments, during 


130 


The Man From Nowhere 


which he ranged the copper coins in rows 
preparatory to counting them, the boy re- 
marked : 

“It doesn’t seem to be a very big collec- 
tion.” 

“No,” said Father McNeirny, with a sigh, 
which he adroitly changed into a laugh, “but 
it’s magnificent compared to what it will be 
when you summer birds have flown.” 

He leaned back in his chair and regarded 
the money thoughtfully. 

*‘It isn’t that I’m avaricious, Harry,” he 
declared, “there never was a man that cared 
less for money than I do, but there’s the in- 
terest on the debt coming due in November, 
and the insurance next month and a lot of 
other httle things. It will take a good many 
collections pieced together to cover all that 
and my salary is small.” 

Harry listened sympathetically, his blue 
eyes opening wider and wider. 

“And then there are so many poor in the 
parish,” went on the priest, becoming un- 
wontedly confidential, “it makes my heart 
bleed when I see their necessities and can 
do nothing to relieve them. Sometimes I 


131 


A Munificent Gift 

wish that I had private means, and then 
again I say to myself that that wouldn’t be 
God’s way at all. He wants the church and 
the schools and everything else to depend 
upon His providence. But it would be an 
immense help if the collections were larger 
and if everybody that came to church would 
just give a little.” 

“I was thinking of those vestments, too,” 
Harry interposed, “that you wished for at 
the picnic.” 

“Oh, that was an idle dream; forget all 
about it,” cried the priest, “it was only my 
foolish vanity, wanting to have things fine 
when the bishop comes. But he knows I’m 
only a poor country priest, and he’ll have to 
say Mass in the vestments I’ve got.” 

“I wish our people were back,” cried 
Harry, impulsively. 

“Even if they were, I’d forbid you to say 
a word to them,” responded the priest, 
“when your father has all but built this 
church, and it’s nothing with him and your 
mother but give, give, give, ever since I 
came to the parish. Hello, though, isn’t 
that the sound of wheels?” 


132 


The Man From Nowhere 


For sole answer Harry sprang up and 
vaulted out of the low window, calling in 
again immediately : 

“It’s Paddy and Fred and they’ve got 
the box. Come out quick, Father, and see 
what a big one it is.” 

Fired by the boy’s enthusiasm, Father 
McNeirny appeared upon the porch just as 
the cart stopped at the door. 

The case was, indeed, so heavy that it 
was not easy to see how it could be brought 
into the house. 

“There’s Ben over in Larkin’s field,” de- 
clared Paddy, and putting his hands 
trumpet-wise to his mouth, he called: 

“Hi, Ben! Hi, Ben!” 

Ben did not hear at first. He was busy 
digging ; and it was only after repeated and 
lusty shouts, wherein the other boys joined, 
that his attention was attracted. Raising his 
head, he perceived that three pairs of arms 
were being waved in his direction, and he 
also noted the cart at the priest’s door, be- 
tokening something unusual. Bounding 
over the intervening fences and clearing the 
ground in a qmck run, he was soon upon 


133 


A Munificent Gift 

the spot, hearing all the boys together tell- 
ing him of the arrival of the box and the 
reason that his services were urgently re- 
quired. 

It was a quiet road whereon the rectory 
stood. The dwellings were few and irregu- 
larly placed and everywhere about were the 
open fields, the sky line stretching away and 
mingling with the surrounding sea. So 
that there were few passers-by, either to ob- 
serve the unwonted excitement about the 
rectory, or to assist in the moving of the 
case. However, by the united exertions of 
Ben and Father McNeirny, assisted by the 
Tremaines and Paddy, it was safely de- 
posited in the hall. 

‘T suppose it would be cruel to keep you 
in suspense any longer,” said Father Mc- 
Neirny, with a twinkle in his eye, “and I 
may as well confess that I’m as big a baby 
as any of you. So run off to the kitchen, 
Paddy, like a good boy, and get a hammer 
and chisel from Bridget.” 

This order was obeyed by Fred instead. 
He had considerable difficulty in persuad- 
ing Bridget, who was old and deaf, that he 


134 The Man From Nowhere 

had not come there for a drink of water. 
That was the request most frequently made 
to her, when it was not a case of something 
to eat, for charity’s sake. Therefore, in re- 
sponse to Fred’s demand, she produced a 
large mug and filling it to the brim with 
water offered it to the discomfited boy. He 
shook his head and, helpless in the presence 
of her infirmity, strove by various signs to 
show her what he meant. Bridget set down 
the mug with a puzzled look, muttering to 
herself : 

“Poor young gentleman; he’s got a ner- 
vous complaint.” 

Fred made another effort, approaching 
close to the old woman and thundering in 
her ear. Despairing of success, he was about 
to go for Father McNeirny, when he per- 
ceived in a rack on the wall the very uten- 
sils of which he was in search, and seizing 
them he fled from the kitchen. 

In a few moments afterward the splinter- 
ing of wood was heard and presently, the 
cover being removed, the eager hands of the 
boys began to investigate the contents of 
the case. Packed with the utmost care. 


135 


A Munificent Gift 

covered by layer after layer of silk paper, 
were finally displayed first one complete set 
of vestments and then another. Not only 
the white for which the priest had wished, 
but the black and the green and the red 
and the purple and finally the gold. These 
last of cloth of gold, embroidered in rich 
bullion, were the most beautiful that could 
be imagined. 

Father McNeirny gazed at them with 
wonder, not unmixed with awe. Pale with 
excitement he exclaimed: 

“They can’t be for me, boys. Why, all 
the money I ever got since I came to the 
parish wouldn’t pay for them.” 

“Some one must have sent them as a 
present,” suggested Fred. 

“But who on earth would think of send- 
ing me such a present as that?” objected 
the priest. 

“Perhaps,” suggested Harry, in his slow, 
deliberate fashion, “your wish in the woods 
that day was overheard.” 

“That is absurd,” said Father McNeirny, 
“there wasn’t a soul anywhere about that 
could afford such gifts.” 


The Man From Nowhere 


lae 

“I think I know,” ventured Harry again. 

“Tell us, then, for my sake,” urged the 
agitated priest. 

Harry looked at the other boys, who nod- 
ded assent, and lowering his voice, declared 
confidentially. 

‘T think. Father, it must be the Man from 
Nowhere.” 

“Why, what put that into your head?” 
inquired the priest, hastily, “did you hear 
anything?” 

“No,” answered Harry, “but some 
strange things have been happening lately, 
and we’re almost sure that he has a hand 
in them.” 

“That is pure supposition,” objected 
Father McNeirny, “and why on earth 
should he send me anything?” 

“He said you were so kind to him and that 
he owed you a debt.” 

“Owed me a debt,” repeated the priest, 
still bewildered and gazing at the mysteri- 
ous vestments, “owed me a debt!” 

As he spoke, two big tears gathered in 
his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. He 
thought of the long years of his ministry. 


137 


A Munificent Gift 

of the vigils he had kept, his tireless minis- 
trations to the rich and to the poor, late and 
early, in sunshine and in rain, few of which 
had ever been requited by so much as a 
grateful word; and here was this stranger, 
this Samaritan, if the boy’s surmise proved 
correct, who so gratefully remembered, so 
bountifully repaid. 

It was not that he rated his labors so very 
highly, for he was singularly humble, and 
he was constantly afraid that they might 
fall short of what was required in a priest. 
Nevertheless, he had a warm, human heart, 
and its pulses were deeply stirred by this 
generous appreciation. He had, in fact, 
very little doubt that Harry spoke the 
truth, and that this splendid gift had really 
come from one whom he had regarded as a 
forlorn waif. Still he advanced another ob- 
jection: 

“We are not even sure, boys, that the man 
you mention is alive. I have had grave fears 
ever since his disappearance that something 
might have happened.” 

“And lots of folks think he was a sperrit, 
anny way,” put in Paddy. 


138 


The Man From Nowhere 


Father McNeirny’s hearty laugh at that 
suggestion broke the nervous tension. 

“Oh, he was flesh and blood all right,” he 
declared. 

“And,” added Fred, “he must have been 
a rich man.” 

“Powerful rich, I guess!” agreed Ben, 
looking at the vestments. 

“And,” whispered Harry, looking cau- 
tiously around him, “he must be somewhere 
near, unless ” 

“Unless, he’s a sperrit, after all,” said 
Father McNeirny, “and if that was so, I 
wonder how he managed to be up in that 
big place in Barclay Street giving orders 
for vestments.” 


CHAPTER V 

GIFT FOLLOWS GIFT 

T he excitement produced by this last and 
most astounding matter of the vest- 
ments, which necessarily became known at 
once and was proclaimed next Sunday from 
the pulpit by the pastor himself, was not 
allowed to die away, but was followed by a 


189 


Gift Follows Gift 

series of other surprises. The good genius 
that seemed to preside over the affairs of 
that district continued to distribute his fa- 
vors. Thus every man who had served in 
the crew of the life-boat was called upon 
to appear at the wicket of the post-office to 
sign for a registered letter, and it is easy to 
see what a turmoil was produced by that 
very circumstance in the minds of men who 
had never received such a document before. 

In each separate envelope was enclosed 
a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, 
a veritable fortune to these unsophisticated 
dwellers by the sea. Nor were the Tre- 
maine boys, who had offered the hospitality 
of their house and carriage, forgotten, nor 
yet Ben, who had served upon the life-boat, 
nor Paddy Wallace, who had shared the 
long night vigil, nor Hannah the house- 
keeper. Fred became the proud possessor 
of a tool-chest, and Harry of an exquisitely 
wrought stem-winder of solid gold bearing 
the inscription: “To the boy who believed in 
me.” Ben, in addition to the sum received 
for his work in the life-boat, received a com- 
plete set of fishing tackle, and Paddy was 


140 The Man From Nowhere 

the recipient of the sum of fifty dollars to 
be absolutely his own. Thus were fulfilled 
in their regard, to their astonishment and 
even awe, the exact wishes which they had 
made in the woods on the memorable day of 
the picnic. Hannah was delighted with the 
gift of a handsome silk dress and a sum of 
money to divide among her fellow-domestics. 

The village being thus set by the ears, it 
seemed as if the climax had been reached. 
The bishop came and officiated on the Sep- 
tember feast, and wore that splendid gold 
cope, which he declared was almost hand- 
somer than anything that his own ecclesias- 
tical wardrobe contained. Fred and Harry 
and Paddy were among those within the 
sanctuary rail, and they felt a certain proud 
proprietorship in the splendor of those gar- 
ments. 

It was, in fact, a gala occasion. The 
church was thronged to the doors, not only 
with the parishioners and the scattered 
remnants of the summer visitors, but with 
as many outsiders as could possibly find 
places. Those of every creed and of none, 
were eager to see the first public display of 


141 


Gift Follows Gift 

the handsomest of all those priestly gar- 
ments, which had assumed a more than 
parochial importance. They had given a 
new importance to the municipality, and 
had an almost mythical and fabulous value, 
as if they were a supernatural gift. The most 
bigoted of outsiders talked of them with 
singular gratification and genuine admira- 
tion. 

While the popular mind was thus at fever 
heat, the zenith of excitement was reached. 
At a meeting of the Town Council, on the 
very day following the ceremony at the 
church, the local attorney entered fairly 
bursting with iihportance. The council met 
in circumscribed and ill-lighted quarters, 
consisting of a disused and sadly dilapidated 
shop. Hence, some idea of their feelings, 
individually and collectively, may be imag- 
ined when the attorney, controlling his voice, 
and subduing his excitement to the proper 
professional calm, declared that he desired to 
read a letter, just received from a legal firm 
in New York. They had been empowered 
by a client to purchase, in the village therein- 
after named, a suitable site for the erection 


142 


The Man From Nowhere 


of a town hall, library, and lyceum. So as- 
tounding was this communication that the 
village functionaries fairly gasped. They 
were not accustomed to emergencies, the af- 
fairs which they had to transact being few 
and simple. They questioned, they hummed 
and hawed, they were literally afraid to 
accept the evidence of their own good for- 
tune. 

Nevertheless the fact remained that some 
one whose name was obviously withheld de- 
sired to present the village with a munificent 
gift. And this fact resisted the most search- 
ing inquiries and remained a true one, as was 
proven by the purchase of several acres of 
land, whereon were laid the foundations of 
the new edifice. 

The four inseparables were greatly ex- 
cited over this latest development, and in 
their secret conclaves were disposed to take 
a certain share of the credit to themselves. 
For had they not discovered and, as it were, 
introduced upon the scene, that mysterious 
stranger, to whom, rightly or wrongly, they 
attributed the several benefactions? They 
loudly proclaimed this belief and sang the 


143 


Gift Follows Gift 

praises of the unknown benefactor. He, 
whom the sea had, as it were, thrown upon 
the shore, became a popular hero, or a tute- 
lary genius to all that vicinity. Nor were 
the superstitious ideas concerning him en- 
tirely dispelled. Many others besides Paddy 
Wallace were still inclined to think of him as 
a “sperrit.’’ They made no attempt, it is 
true, to explain why this aerial creation of 
their fancy should have come up from the 
sea depths, whither he had presumably re- 
turned. Their gossip concerning him be- 
guiled many a solitary evening in the houses 
of the poorer folk and lent a touch of poetry 
to rude surroundings. It seemed a part 
of those strange whisperings, heard in the 
moaning of the wind over wastes of ocean 
and the beating of the surges on lonely and 
night-enshrouded shores. 


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1 II 


BOOK III 
CHAPTER I 


OVERTAKEN BY THE STORM 

N OW the mystery might for many a long 
day have remained a mystery still, 
had not Fred and Harry, in the redoubled 
activity which marked the closing days of 
their already prolonged vacation, pushed 
their explorations upon the sandy shore of 
the ocean farther than ever before. 

Two or three days of rain had dampened 
the exuberance of their spirits, though it had 
not sufficed to keep them indoors. Provided 
with raincoats and rubber boots, they had 
plowed through the muddiest roads and 
defied the most drenching showers. They 
had braved even the dreariness of the beach, 
where the heavy rain made innumerable tiny 
holes in the dull, gray sand and white-capped 
waves gleamed ghastly under a sullen sky. 

On the fourth morning, the sun showed 
its welcome visage through the heavy 
clouds and seemed the brighter for the 
145 


146 


The Man From Nowhere 


previous grayness. It is true that the wise- 
acres shook their heads over the weather, 
which they regarded as by no means settled. 
But the time was growing short for the 
Tremaine boys and they determined to turn 
every moment to advantage. Taking an 
early dinner at noon, they set out with 
Paddy and Ben, who chanced to be at 
leisure that day, for the distant regions of 
the farther beach. 

They plodded on valiantly, though the 
sand was not nearly so firm or smooth as 
usual after the rain, and their feet were in- 
clined to sink at every step. Harry sud- 
denly remarked : 

“This reminds me of that morning when 
we were building the tunnel, and the Man 
from Nowhere came up out of the sea.” 

“Cricky!” cried Paddy, casting a fright- 
ened glance over his shoulder, “don’t you be 
talkin’ like that. I guess he can hear.” 

“Hear?” scoffed Fred, “why, what are 
you thinking of? Just look around you.” 

They all stood still and gazed at the great, 
wide ocean and the expanse of sky. The 
village with its dwellings had disappeared; 
there was no sign of a living habitation, and 


147 


Overtaken by the Storm 

only the dull boom of the surf broke the 
stillness. After that the boys began to run 
in pure enjoyment, running races with each 
other, over the firm, white beach, or leaping 
over the dunes or low sand-hills, amidst 
which sprung up the sparse sea-grasses; or, 
close to the water, they picked up the bub- 
bles of seaweed to crackle them in their 
fingers, or stored away in their pockets the 
prettiest of shells and pebbles. 

As the scene grew wilder and lonelier 
and, to the city boys, at least, more un- 
familiar, their spirits rose higher and higher. 
They danced, they whooped, they shouted 
for very glee or rolled in the sand like young 
animals. Upspringing again they pursued 
their way, still farther and farther from 
every sign of civilization. The keen salt air, 
blowing landward, caused their cheeks to 
glow, while the invigorating breath of old 
ocean likewise expanded their lungs and 
stimulated their whole system, till they felt 
that they could have performed the most im- 
possible feats or continued walking on for- 
ever. 

So absorbed were they in these various 
delights, afforded by the proximity of the 


148 


The Man From Nowhere 


sea and the sense of boundless freedom, that 
even Ben and Paddy, who were experienced 
in such things, did not observe the signs of 
the weather. At starting, the sky had been 
a bright blue, flecked with white and show- 
ing patches of gray here and there, through 
which the sun shone down with almost un- 
earthly brightness. Gradually, dark clouds, 
small at first, began to appear in the western 
sky, the light became ominously lurid, while 
the wind moaned dismally, and the sea-birds 
flew so low that it almost seemed as if their 
pinions would touch the water. Ben was 
the first to notice these tokens. 

“Look here, fellows!’’ he cried, in his slow, 
heavy fashion, “we’d better be turning to- 
ward the village.” 

“Oh, no!” cried Fred, “we want to go 
another mile at least.” 

“We’ll be lucky ef we git back now before 
the storm breaks,” Ben answered, gravely, 
“and a regular sou’wester, too, when it do 
come.” 

“You bet!” agreed Paddy, looking at the 
sky, “we’d better make tracks.” 

Fred was particularly sorry to give up 


149 


Overtaken by the Storm 

his project of walking to the end of the 
beach. Harry, however, though he was 
likewise disappointed, resigned himself more 
easily to the inevitable, and seizing his re- 
luctant brother by the arm, turned him 
back. 

“Come,” he cried, “don’t be a goose!” 

“It won’t be any use,” grumbled Fred, 
“we’re so far away from the village that 
we might as well go on.” 

Even while he argued, the clouds began 
to extend with alarming rapidity. An om- 
inous, appalling darkness overspread the 
sky, enlivened only by a lurid, yellow light, 
which quivered weirdly over the sea. The 
waves, already agitated by the wind that 
began to blow in short, sharp gusts, broke 
with redoubled fury or gleamed ghastly 
pale and gray in the semi-darkness. The 
boys looked hopelessly around them, only 
the vast sea-plain and the wide stretch of 
beach met their eyes, as lonely, dreary, and 
desolate a scene as could well be imagined, 
while the first jagged streak of forked light- 
ning lit up the western sky and sharply de- 
fined the ragged edge of the black cloud. 


150 The Man From Nowhere 

Heavy drops of rain began to fall and the 
rumbling of thunder, though still distant, 
showed the proximity of the storm. 

“We’d best cut and run for it,” suggested 
Paddy. 

“Too late,” declared Ben, “I guess we’d 
do better to lie low among the sand-heaps 
there. That’s about the best shelter we can 
git.” 

But it was not very much shelter, as they 
presently found; still, it was better than 
nothing, better than attempting to run in 
the teeth of a hurricane of wind and the 
fierce glare of the lightning, followed by 
tremendous crashes of thunder. Ben, with 
the philosophy of his calling, for he was 
chiefly a fisherman, made out the best shel- 
ter he could for himself and his companions 
in the shadow of the hills. Nevertheless, a 
more miserable, chilled, drenched, and al- 
together uncomfortable party of boys than 
those four it would be impossible to find. 
They strove to put as brave a face upon 
affairs as possible and not to mind the ter- 
rific peals of thunder and the deadly gleam 
of the lightning, which might have appalled 


151 


Overtaken by the Storm 

the stoutest hearts, while the rain poured 
down in blinding sheets. They had to look 
forward, moreover, to an interminably long 
homeward walk. 

Suddenly, to their utter amazement, they 
heard a voice calling, and looking up cau- 
tiously from behind the hill, they perceived 
a figure advancing, which seemed in the 
lurid light to be of almost abnormal size. 
They were considerably startled to discover 
that it was a huge negro, clad in oilskins and 
with other garments over his arm. Contin- 
uing to approach, he called loudly to the 
boys, and waved his arms at them; in their 
alarm and indecision, they kept still and 
made no answer. Presently, however, in a 
lull of the storm, they were enabled to dis- 
tinguish the man’s words: 

“Come, you boys! Come quick! You git 
wet dar.” 

“Come where?” inquired Harry. 

“Come with me. Massa tell me to bring 
you.” 

The boys exchanged glances. They re- 
flected that four of them together would be 
tolerably safe, unless there were an organ- 


152 The Man From Nowhere 

ized band of cutthroats, in which case they 
would not be safe in their present position. 
Anything seemed preferable at that moment 
to the prospect of staying where they were 
during the gale, and walking home after- 
ward in their dripping garments. Moreover, 
the spice of adventure appealed to all save, 
perchance, the timorous Paddy. No sooner 
had each in turn emerged from the shelter 
than he was seized by the negro and envel- 
oped in a raincoat. Then the black man, 
motioning for the others to follow, began to 
walk away so swiftly that the four compan- 
ions had all the trouble in the world to keep 
pace with him. 

They were almost blinded by the sand, 
impelled by the fierce blast, as they pro- 
ceeded into what seemed to be a veritable 
wilderness. They fully realized that it would 
be an impossibility to walk any distance un- 
der those conditions. As it was, they hast- 
ened on, blindly, helplessly, breathlessly, be- 
wildered by the sense of their awful situa- 
tion. All at once the beach rounded to a 
curve, and the boys’ wondering and de- 
lighted gaze beheld, at a comparatively short 


A Singular Abode 153 

distance inland, a structure of some sort. 
Its appearance was so unexpected, its iso- 
lation so complete, that it might have arisen 
there by enchantment. They could not de- 
termine what kind of dwelling it might be, 
but with a new hope animating their be- 
numbed faculties they ran more swiftly, and 
soon reached the grateful shelter. 


CHAPTER II 

A SINGULAR ABODE 

rp he apartment wherein they found them- 
^ selves was large and square, of solid 
hardwood, and from it opened a couple of 
smaller rooms. The furniture was of the 
simplest kind, while guns, fishing tackle, and 
other implements of sport filled racks upon 
the wall or lay in careless profusion every- 
where. On a rude hearth of the most prim- 
itive description burned immense logs of 
firewood, giving a blaze which seemed to the 
boys the most cheerful sight that had ever 
met their eyes. 


154 The Man From Nowhere 

The negro dropped off his own oilskins, 
and divested the boys not only of the rain- 
coats, but also of their wet jackets, which 
he carefully spread before the fire. He also 
took off their shoes and stockings, expos- 
ing them to the flame. Meanwhile, the ol- 
factory nerves of the guests were greeted 
by an odor, which even to their bewildered 
senses seemed familiar and decidedly pleas- 
ant. It was with something like awe that 
Fred whispered to Harry: 

“Coffee!” 

And coffee it was, boiling up over the fire 
and filling the room with its delightful fra- 
grance. The negro placed rude seats before 
the hearth for his charges, who began to be 
fully conscious of their comfortable sur- 
roundings, and to rejoice at their security 
from the raging tempest. As they sat thus, 
they were startled by a voice, which they 
seemed to know. It uttered the few and 
simple words : 

“Jake, pour out the coffee!” 

The four boys, by a simultaneous move- 
ment, looked over their shoulder, but at the 
first glance perceived nothing. The negro. 


A Singular Abode 155 

instantly obeying the order, raised a huge 
pot of coffee from the logs and poured it 
into mugs which stood ranged upon a table. 
He offered one of these to each of the 
guests, supplemented by huge slices of rye 
bread and butter. Never had anything 
tasted more delicious, and while they ate 
and drank they basked in the cheerful 
warmth, and their troubles, fears, and de- 
spondency magically vanished. 

Meantime, the gale raged without, ter- 
rific waves broke upon the shore, rivaling 
in their thunder the artillery of heaven over- 
head. The lightning glared through the win- 
dow-panes, obscured as they were by the 
blinding rain. The boys having finished the 
second helping of coffee, which was supplied 
to them by the negro, their curiosity began 
to awaken, and they stared about them with 
interest. They wondered how a house could 
have come there in so isolated a position. 
Ben and Paddy were positive that it had 
not been there very long and that no one 
in the village was aware of its existence. 
All were eager to know who could be the 
owner of the mysterious dwelling, “the Mas- 


156 The Man From Nowhere 

sa” to whom the black man had referred, 
and to whom likewise belonged the voice 
which they had heard. 

Whilst they were pondering thus and 
gazing about the apartment, a figure sud- 
denly appeared on the threshold of one of 
the smaller rooms. This apparition caused 
the four boys simultaneously to start, while 
Paddy Wallace, turning pale, uttered his 
favorite exclamation: 

“Cricky, it’s him^ 

The personage indicated by that awe- 
stricken masculine pronoun advanced to- 
ward the circle surrounding the hearth. The 
eyes of every boy were riveted upon him, 
while Paddy visibly shrank into the far- 
thest corner. 

“Well, boys,” said the newcomer, in a 
genial and friendly tone, “I’m sorry I can’t 
offer you just now a meat pie nor yet a salad 
nor any of those other excellent things with 
which you regaled me. But what I have is 
most heartily at your service and, at least, 
you can find rest and security in this poor 
abode.” 

The boys, still speechless with astonish- 


A Singular Abode 157 

merit, continued to regard their singular 
host. There in very flesh and blood, slim, 
alert, and cheerful as ever, clad in that self- 
same suit of dark blue flannel in which they 
had first seen him, stood the “Man from 
Nowhere !” 

Glancing, with frank amusement at their 
bewilderment, from one to the other of the 
boys, the stranger spoke again, partly with 
a view to relieve the embarrassment of his 
guests. 

“It is something, of course,’’ he said, “to 
have gained a shelter from the storm, one of 
the worst I have ever seen upon this coast. 
It is a fine sight, though; look there!” 

He pointed through the window to the 
western sky, still darkened by storm clouds, 
piling up in jagged masses, black or violet, 
which were riven asunder, ever and anon, 
by streaks of lurid white, or jets of flame. 
The sea, now gray, now silvery white, was 
still agitated, and rose and fell in tumul- 
tuous masses of brine. The rain continued 
its drenching downpour. The whole was 
terrible, sublime, and, to the excited fancy 
of the boys, almost mystical, as though it 


158 


The Man From Nowhere 


had been some ancient ocean, far off under 
alien suns and with a strange, foreign sky 
stretching overhead. 

Harry Tremaine, turning presently from 
the contemplation of this spectacle and 
breaking the embarrassed silence that had 
held himself and his companions as in a 
spell, said to the stranger: 

‘Tt was very kind of you, sir, to send your 
man for us. But how did you know we were 
out there?’’ 

“Oh, I have various means of knowledge 
at my command,” the man answered, 
“though I am not quite like our old acquaint- 
ance Prospero, in his enchanted isle. My 
friend Paddy there will probably tell you 
that I know it all, as befits a ‘sperrit.’ In this 
case, however, I assure you that I did not 
employ any supernatural means to discover 
your whereabouts.” 

He laughed that same boyish laugh which 
his hearers had found so attractive before, 
as he went on to explain; 

“The matter is very simple. My man 
J ake here was himself caught in the storm, 
and reported to me that four boys were ex- 


A Singular Abode 159 

actly in the same predicament. I should 
have tried to help them in any case, but I 
was the more anxious to do so that I 
strongly suspected it could be no other than 
my particular four. For I knew that for 
some time past you contemplated this ex- 
cursion.” 

“You knew that?” exclaimed Fred, “well, 
I never!” 

“Oh, yes, I knew that. I have kept my- 
self pretty well informed of your doings, 
my fine fellows, since that memorable night 
when you all guarded the silver so faith- 
fully, and with the exception of Harry, 
were prepared to do battle with a miscreant 
in a righteous cause.” 

Fred, Ben, and Paddy looked confused, 
but the stranger, putting a hand on the 
shoulder of those two who were nearest to 
him, said, earnestly: 

“Don’t for a moment think that I blame 
you. You were right, yes, a thousand times 
right, to defend what was in your charge, 
and you acted bravely and like men. But 
I was feeling a bit despondent and dis- 
couraged just then, and I appreciated the 


160 


The Man From Nowhere 


fact that Harry here recognized me to be 
an honest man.” 

“Not quite at first,” Harry put in, fear- 
ing that he had been receiving unmerited 
praise. 

“No, I understand all that,” cried the 
stranger hastily, “don’t spoil my illusions.” 

The silence which ensued was again 
broken by Harry, saying with conviction: 

“It was you that sent all the presents.” 

The mysterious personage regarded the 
speaker, a smile playing about his lips, but 
said nothing. 

“Oh, thank you so much for the watch,” 
Harry cried. 

“And those splendid tools,” echoed Fred. 

“And the money,” put in Paddy some- 
what timidly, “I guess I hain’t never had 
as much in my life.” 

“And I will say, mister,” Ben added, 
“that I ain’t ever used sech fishin’ tackle.” 

“Then,” concluded Harry, “there were 
the splendid vestments and the town hall.” 

The stranger put his hands to his ears, 
with a comical expression of dismay, while 
the boy continued, warmly; 


A Singular Abode 161 

“Everybody in the village is grateful to 
you.” 

“My dear boys,” cried the man thus ad- 
dressed, and he spoke with an emotion that 
brought tears to the eyes of all, “how can 
you, how can any one talk of gratitude to 
me, when I think of the debt I owe. To 
yourselves, who received me into your house 
and watched with me during a long night; 
to the village, that took me to the hospitable 
warmth of mother earth after the terrors of 
the sea; and to the brave men who risked 
their lives to snatch me out of deadly peril.” 

He turned away, as if overcome by his 
emotion, then resumed in his ordinary tone: 

“I am an idle fellow. I chance to have 
some money at my command. The very 
little I have done has given me great pleas- 
ure, but I hope that I shall be able to do 
much more to show my appreciation.” 

Then he resolutely changed the subject, 
sitting down amongst the boys as if he had 
been one of themselves, inquiring as to their 
interests and pursuits, their daily doings 
and the happenings of village life. He spoke 
with cordial affection of Father McNeirny: 


162 


The Man From Nowhere 


“That is a man whom I admire!’’ he de- 
clared, emphatically. “Some of these days 
I am going to let him take me in hand and 
transform me into a Christian — if he can. 
And you boys will have a share in the work. 
You taught me a thing or two about what 
it is to believe in God and to act accord- 
ingly.” 

The boys were astonished at this idea. 
How could they teach any one ? They were 
such ordinary, everyday fellows, as they 
thought, and scarcely ever dreamed of talk- 
ing religion. 

“It’s the best thing in the world even for 
this existence here below,” continued the 
unknown, earnestly, “to be brought up with 
religion all around and about you. If you 
stick fast to its teachings, you’ll never meet 
with shipwreck. I don’t want to preach, 
heaven knows, but, oh, my dear fellows, hold 
to your belief and practice it, if you want 
to be happy men.” 

The deep and almost tragic solemnity 
and the evident sincerity with which the 
stranger spoke impressed his hearers. Jake, 
the negro, a picturesque figure, sat, mean- 


A Singular Abode 163 

while, in the background, listening eagerly 
to the conversation which his master pur- 
sued as if oblivious of his presence. Later 
on, however, when the talk had assumed a 
lighter tone and was interlarded with jest 
and laughter, Jake occasionally showed his 
white teeth in an appreciative grin. And 
thus the shadows of the afternoon gathered 
darker and darker, till the twilight had fallen 
on that unusual scene and on the group 
at the fireside. Gradually the thunder had 
rumbled away into the distance and the 
jagged streaks of the forked lightning had 
ceased to illumine the sky. 

Then it was that Ben Masterson, who had 
been observing the scenes of the weather, 
said suddenly, with an admonitory glance 
at his companions : 

‘T guess, mister, we’ll have to be goin’ 
now.” 

“Going?” cried the stranger, “not if I 
have to prevent you by main force.” 

“The worst of the storm’s over,” Ben de- 
clared. 

“The lightning and thunder, yes,” said 
their host, “but look out there at that 


164 


The Man From Nowhere 


rain. Why, you’d be drenched before you 
went a quarter of a mile. And as for the 
wind, it has by no means exhausted itself 
yet.” 

He stopped and made the boys listen to 
the fierce blasts that still swept past the 
house. 

“I think you may as well make up your 
minds,” he urged, “to spend the night under 
my roof. For you could not reach the vil- 
lage till long after dark, and it might not 
be very safe to make the attempt.” 

The boys looked at one another. There 
was much in the suggestion that was very 
tempting. The novelty of their situation, 
its adventurous character, and the pleasant 
companionship of their hospitable host were 
in themselves desirable; whereas it seemed 
unspeakably dreary to think of the intermi- 
nably long walk over the wastes of sand, in 
the darkness of the gathering night, and in 
the face of rain and wind. 

“Jake will cook you a beefsteak,” con- 
tinued their entertainer, “won’t you, Jake?” 

“Yes, Massa.” 

“And a mighty good one, as I can tell 


A Memorable Experience 165 

you beforehand, with some of his fried po- 
tatoes and beaten biscuit, old Virginia 
style.” 

“Hannah may be anxious,” objected 
Harry, “and Paddy Wallace’s aunt, who 
takes care of him, and Ben’s people too.” 

“Well, their anxiety would be better 
founded if you took that long walk in such 
weather,” declared the stranger, “we shall 
let them know as early as possible in the 
morning that you are safe. They will prob- 
ably think that you took shelter somewhere.” 

“I guess they’ll know we’re all right,” 
put in Ben, for he better imderstood by ex- 
perience the difficulties that the homeward 
walk would entail, “as long as we was on 
dry land, they won’t be scared.” 

So it was settled. 

CHAPTER III 

A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE 

T hat was a memorable night for our 
four acquaintances. Jake fully realized 
their expectations in the matter of cooking. 
They all enthusiastically declared that it 


166 The Man From Nowhere 

was superfine. And when they had done 
the fullest justice to the viands, they re- 
sumed their places about the fire for a long 
and confidential talk. 

Jake busied himself in preparing rude 
but comfortable couches, ranged against the 
wall, somewhat in the manner of sailors’ 
bunks, with warm blankets and soft pil- 
lows. This done, he withdrew, and the little 
group of personages who had been thus 
strangely brought into one another’s lives 
sat together, while a clock upon the wall 
ticked away the hours, just as another clock 
had done upon that other night at the Tre- 
maine villa. 

In the course of conversation, the stranger 
gave them a partial insight into some of the 
mysteries which had made that summer a 
thing apart in the history of the village and 
in the experience of all these boys. 

‘T came here,” said the stranger, “and 
caused this shack to be built, in order that 
I might find sohtude. For that reason, 
too, I kept my presence here, as far as pos- 
sible, a secret, and for that reason I started 
upon the cruise which so nearly ended dis- 


A Memorable Experience 167 

astrously. My special motives for that 
course of action would not interest you. 
Suffice it to say that I was sick of life and 
utterly weary. I sought under the sky of 
heaven peace and freedom from the compan- 
ionship of my fellow-men, which had become 
unendurable.” 

“And we came here and found you out,” 
exclaimed Harry, regretfully, “wasn’t that 
a pity!” 

“No,” said the stranger, “the sea first 
threw me into your path, and as for the rest, 
you broke in upon a morbidly selfish retire- 
ment. Even in my worst of moods I did not 
intend that this isolation should last for- 
ever.” 

He laughed genially as he spoke. “Ever 
since I so narrowly escaped from the 
clutches of the ocean monsters, I have had a 
new interest in existence. I have felt im- 
pelled to cultivate a closer acquaintance with 
you four, for example, and, as I have said, 
to put myself into the hands of Father Mc- 
Neirny.” 

He stopped and looked into the fire seri- 
ously for some moments, then resumed: 


168 


The Man From Nowhere 


“That mysterious rite of which you told 
me, your short and simple explanation of 
the tremendous power wielded by that 
kindly, human-hearted priest, struck me as 
so wonderful that it has haunted my solitude 
ever since and filled me with a strange long- 
ing. Oh, boys, boys! You to whom these 
things have been commonplaces since your 
childhood can not know, can not under- 
stand!” 

His voice was broken, as it were, with 
emotion and his listeners gazed at him with 
something like awe, but he presently con- 
tinued in his ordinary voice: 

“Perhaps you did not know that I met 
Father McNeirny upon the beach and had 
a talk with him that morning when I so un- 
graciously left the hospitable shelter of your 
house.” 

He turned to Harry and Fred as he con- 
cluded: “When he left me, with his frank 
and hearty handshake, we were friends for- 
ever. After he had passed out of sight and 
I still stood there, my faithful Jake came 
hurrying to the shore. He had been in the 
greatest distress of mind, for he had discov- 


A Memorable Experience 169 

ered that I was upon the ocean and had 
probably heard tidings of the overturned 
boat.” 

“Oh, he must have been glad to find you 
again!” cried Fred and Harry in unison. 

“Yes, he was glad, indeed, and when I 
saw him the longing came upon me to slip 
away and bury myself in seclusion without 
revealing my identity. As to the minor mys- 
teries ” 

“The basket for the crabbers,” suggested 
Fred. 

The stranger smiled and nodded good- 
humoredly. 

“And the day of the picnic, when you — 
or some one — must have found the list or 
heard the wishes,” added Harry. 

“Yes, and the day when your fish was 
taken,” assented the host. “Jake and I 
know something about all those matters. 
The explanation is very simple and they 
are such trifles as to be scarcely worth dis- 
cussing.” 

“We thought you was a sperrit or one 
of those old fairies,” put in Paddy, timor- 
ously, not altogether reassured as yet upon 


170 


The Man From Nowhere 


either point. The man laughed long and 
loudly at the suggestion, and promptly 
changed the subject. Harry asked him after 
a while: 

“Are you going to stay here in winter, 
sir?” 

“No, I think that would be scarcely pos- 
sible, with the flood-tides and all that, but 
I shall stay as long as I can. So I wonder if 
I can trust you all to keep my secret for a 
time from every one except Father Mc- 
Neirny?” 

The boys readily promised; though, of 
course, this quite spoiled the sensation which 
they had hoped to make on their return to 
the village. After that, the host advised 
them to go to bed, as one after another the 
lads began to show signs of fatigue. He saw 
them all settled on their temporary couches, 
and warmly covered up, while still the wind 
in fierce gusts swept by that lonely dwelling 
and the noise of the rain upon the roof 
sounded portentously loud. When bidding 
them good night and promising to have 
them wakened very early for their return 
homeward, the stranger said: 


Further Mystery 171 

‘‘Be assured, boys, that some time you 
will hear of me again, when we shall have a 
more intimate acquaintance and you shall 
learn, perhaps, the whole story of the Man 
from Nowhere.” 


CHAPTER IV 

FURTHER MYSTERY 

T he boys went away to college again with 
the mystery unsolved. They felt a del- 
icacy in intruding themselves any further 
upon the stranger without an invitation, 
which was not forthcoming. It was to their 
credit that the four, solemnly pledging them- 
selves to secrecy, uttered no word concern- 
ing the singular dwelling upon the beach, 
nor of their adventures there. Of course, 
they made the one exception, which the 
stranger himself had suggested, and related 
the whole occurrence to Father McNeirny. 
The priest looked thoughtful as he listened 
to the tale, but agreed with the boys that it 
was better to take no further step, leaving 


172 The Man From Nowhere 

the matter altogether to the unknown one’s 
good pleasure. 

“We must leave the affair in higher 
hands,” he declared, “we’ll have to pray for 
him, boys, and, please God, he’ll be brought 
one day into the true fold.” 

This the boys, and especially the Tre- 
maines, pledged themselves to do and were 
faithful to their promise, even after they had 
returned to college. Father McNeirny 
never advocated long prayers, but he asked 
them to say a decade of the Rosary or a 
few Hail Marys now and again for that 
waif of the ocean who had so singularly 
drifted into their lives. 

After the Tremaines left the village and 
their dwelling was closed, together with most 
of the other summer residences, Ben and 
Paddy often talked, after their own fash- 
ion, of the events of the summer and prom- 
ised to keep their friends acquainted with any 
new developments that might occur. When 
November was settling down gray and 
dreary, fogs rolling up from the sea and 
nightly frosts chilling the warm surface of 
the land, Ben and Paddy, on one occasion. 


Further Mystery 173 

pursued their investigations as far as the 
scene of their nocturnal adventures. It was 
Paddy who had suggested in a shamefaced 
sort of way that they should try to find the 
place again, and observe it from a safe dis- 
tance and find out, if they could, how it 
fared with the “Man from Nowhere.” Ben 
had received the suggestion in silence, sit- 
ting down to ruminate after his fashion, and 
finally deciding that the attempt might be 
made. 

“But weVe got to keep out o’ that feller’s 
sight,” he declared, “jest recolleck that.” 

Paddy quite willingly agreed to that part 
of the bargain, since he never felt altogether 
comfortable in the stranger’s presence. 
When they drew near the memorable spot, 
therefore, they crouched behind sand-dunes, 
resting a full five minutes behind the very 
hill where they had taken shelter and from 
which Jake had rescued them. By various 
signs, perceptible to Ben’s trained eye, they 
were able to locate from that vantage-point 
the position of the house. They knew it to 
be immediately beyond the rounding of that 
curve in the beach, and at but a little dis- 


174 The Man From Nowhere 

tance inland. They cautiously reconnoitered 
before turning the curve, from which they 
gradually drew near the fateful spot. As 
they approached, their feelings were a com- 
pound of surprise, relief, and disappoint- 
ment. Not a trace of the shack was to be 
seen. The flood-tides of the autumn had 
removed almost every vestige of the dwell- 
ing. Only a very few traces remained to 
prevent the explorers from believing that 
their experience had been all a dream. The 
Man from Nowhere had likewise disap- 
peared and had gone to the place from which 
he had come. To Paddy’s superstitious 
mind, this place was undoubtedly in the 
depths of the sea. 

His old fears revived. He was anxious to 
get away from the spot. It was dreary 
enough as they stood, Ben gazing out over 
the deep, with that gaze, half wistful, half 
penetrating, with which fishermen or mari- 
ners so often seem to regard their familiar 
element, and Paddy casting timorous 
glances on the spot where so lately they had 
seen the magical dwelling. A bitter wind 
blew, moaning and whistling, direct from 


Further Mystery 175 

the main, and a cold sea mist crept up, as 
if it would obliterate the last traces of the 
boys’ adventure and the stranger’s sojourn 
on those shores. The waves of the incom- 
ing tide licked the beach, slowly, silently, 
but irresistibly, as a destructive influence 
might creep into a life. The lads shivered, 
and Ben, turning up the collar of his pilot 
coat — a movement which Paddy imitated, 
as far as the limitations of his jacket would 
permit — said with a sigh: 

“We’d best be movin,’ Paddy, if we don’t 
want the dark to ketch us here.” 

They moved homeward in disconsolate 
silence, and next morning Ben wrote a few 
scrawling, ill-spelled lines to Harry Tre- 
maine. 

“Thar’s nary a thing left. That thar 
shack with its fixins, and the nigger and 
him, they’ve clean vamoosed.” 

To which Paddy added a postscript: 

“I guess he’s gone back into the sea.” 

And this communication awoke within 
the Tremaine boys the old fire of interest 
and curiosity, which had begun to burn 
lower amid the varied happenings of college 


176 


The Man From Nowhere 


life. It gave them a subject to discuss when 
they found a quiet half-hour together upon 
the campus. 


CHAPTER V 

CONCLUSION 

I T WAS midsummer again, and the Tre- 
maine boys were once more at the villa, 
where their parents were likewise ensconced. 
The two boys took up their old friendship 
with Ben and Paddy, despite the facts that 
both had grown taller and had begun to be 
particular about the shape of their collars 
and the pattern of their neckties. Of course, 
a bond of union between them was still the 
waif rescued from the sea, and the adven- 
tures wherein he was concerned, that they 
had had in common. It formed a chief topic 
of conversation in their meetings, and some- 
thing was almost sure to crop up about the 
mysterious stranger, whether these meetings 
were held under the umbrella-tree, where a 
surprise had greeted the crabbers; in the 
woods, now luxuriantly green as of old, and 


Conclusion 


177 


emitting the same fragrant and resinous 
odors, where the picnic had been disturbed 
by unaccountable noises; or on the beach, 
where the upturned boat had first attracted 
attention. 

But speculate as they might, and discuss 
the subject from every point of view, there 
was no further information to be gained, 
until one eventful day, when Father Mc- 
Neirny detained Harry a moment in the 
sacristy, after Mass, which the boy had been 
serving. 

“I want you four,” he said, “Ben, Paddy, 
Fred and yourself, to meet me this afternoon 
on the beach. It’s the best place,” he added 
with a laugh, “for a private talk, especially 
if a land breeze is blowing, because your 
words are all blown out to sea. And it would 
be a good thing, too, if half the words people 
utter could be blown away, every time. 
Don’t stop now, but let all four of you be 
there punctually at three o’clock.” 

Needless to say, they were all assembled 
at the hour named. Father McNeirny sat 
silent a few moments, looking toward the 
sapphire-colored waves as they tumbled and 


178 


The Man From Nowhere 


danced under a blue sky, when he began 
to speak, and his words were almost drowned 
by the noise of the breakers. 

“Do you remember, lads,” he began, “that 
morning when we stood here and watched 
a man struggling for life in the breakers out 
yonder?” 

The boys eagerly nodded assent, and 
Father McNeirny went on. 

“The life-boat brought him ashore, and 
now, I guess, by God’s help, we’re going 
to pull him out of a deeper whirlpool.” 

The eyes glued to the speaker’s face grew 
round with wonder, while the priest added, 
slowly and deliberately, as though he were 
choosing his words: 

“I have learned at last,” he said, “who 
it was that we saved.” 

“And is he a real, live man?” interrupted 
Paddy. At which all laughed, and Father 
McNeirny answered, laughing: 

“Oh, he’s alive, all right enough, and he’s 
going to prove the fact, but can any of you 
guess his name?” 

“He called himself the Man from No- 
where,” observed Fred. 


Conclusion 


179 


“That was when he was just drifting back 
into life,” Father McNeirny answered, “you 
will be surprised when you hear his name.” 

“Tell us, Father,” cried Fred. 

“We’ve waited so long,” added Harry. 

“Well, he’s just the famous multi-million- 
aire, or billionaire, if you like ” 

And the priest, as if afraid that the very 
winds would hear him, bent and whispered 
a name, which the boys repeated in an awe- 
stricken chorus. They could scarcely have 
been more amazed had they learned that 
the stranger was, in truth, a merman from 
the ocean depths. Even the country boys 
were familiar with that personage and his 
doings. 

“He has written me his whole history,” 
Father McNeirny continued, “and in- 
structed me to let you know. What I have 
to tell you first is deeply shocking, especial- 
ly to our Cathohc instincts. Boys, he went 
out there into those waves with the deliber- 
ate purpose of destroying himself.” 

Exclamations of horror broke from the 
lads. The Tremaines particularly, in their 
sturdy and enlightened Catholicity, felt a 


180 


The Man From Nowhere 


loathing of that capital crime, that unpar- 
donable sin, which done deliberately, makes 
even the mercy of a Redeeming God un- 
available. 

“One would not have thought him such 
a coward,” said the priest, speaking with 
deep sadness, as though the idea depressed 
him. “Even if there were no other world, and 
no God, who gave His life for men, it is a 
base and contemptible act, thus to flinch in 
the battle of life and to fly from its troubles. 
However, in this case, though my corre- 
spondent makes no excuse, it is evident that 
he was physically and mentally unbalanced 
by a terrible grief. He had lost his young 
wife and two children, in the course of a 
month. Perhaps that was why the mercy 
of God went out to him in his awful dan- 
ger.” 

The boys waited silently, while Father 
McNeirny continued the story. 

“You see, he had no faith, no hope, no 
love for his Creator, to support him in such 
a trial, so, eluding his faithful servant, Jake, 
he, the experienced and skilful yachtsman, 
who has made voyages half round the globe, 


Conclusion 


181 


set out alone in a frail craft, which he well 
knew would bear him to destruction. 

“Once out under the pitiless sky, with the 
waves threatening every moment to engulf 
him, he realized the rashness of his act, and 
would have saved himself then had any 
means of so doing offered. But none was 
apparent, and the death which he had chosen 
seemed rushing upon him.” 

Father McNeirny stopped an instant, 
mastering the emotion which the thought 
occasioned, then he resumed: 

“Think of the compassion of Almighty 
God, guiding him toward our shore and 
sending our brave fellows to his rescue. His 
wife, as he declares, had been a Catholic, 
his children, being baptized in that Faith, 
went to heaven in their innocence. Perhaps 
their prayers ascended to the throne of 
grace. He was saved, as you know, not 
only from physical death, but from eternal 
ruin.” 

The boys shuddered at the thought and 
at these terrible revelations, which so deeply 
impressed their youthful minds. 

“Oh,” cried Father McNeimy, “the dis- 


182 


The Man From Nowhere 


honor, the unspeakable horror of that crime, 
of which we read so calmly in the newspa- 
pers. Take the thought to your hearts, 
boys, that it is the most dreadful calamity 
that can befall an individual or a family, 
and that the prevalence of such a crime is 
a disgrace to any nation. It is a dark, 
deadly, unnatural sin, which we shall not 
fully understand until we reach the other 
world.” 

After that, according to his wont, Father 
McNeirny turned his conversation into a 
lighter vein and the unusual sternness of his 
face relaxed. 

“Well, at any rate,” he exclaimed, “thank 
God that our poor friend was saved from 
such a fate as that, and do you know, 
boys, he is coming here to be instructed in 
the Catholic religion and to be publicly re- 
ceived into the Church. He considers this 
village as his second birthplace, and he’s 
going to do wonders, I can tell you, for its 
material, moral, and spiritual improvement. 
I won’t tell you half his plans. They’d take 
too long, and besides. I’ll let him tell you 
himself. Each one of you boys is to be his 


Conclusion 


183 


particular charge from this time forth. 
What pleases me best is the change in his 
own sentiments. The faith, the contrition, 
the humble thankfulness of the man, are 
most edifying.” 

‘T suppose there’ll be a splendid celebra- 
tion at the church the day he’s baptized?” 
surmised Fred. 

“To be sure. We’ll have the bishop here, 
and make it a regular holiday.” 

“I hope it will be in summer,” said Harry. 

“Oh, yes,” answered the priest, “for I do 
not think he will need much instruction. He 
has been reading so many Catholic books 
and conferring with priests and he had 
learned a good deal about the Church from 
his wife.” 

“I’m only sorry for one thing,” Harry 
declared, thoughtfully. 

“Out with it!” cried Father McNeirny, 
“though here doesn’t seem much room for 
sorrow in the whole affair.” 

“I’m sorry he’s so rich,” Harry explained, 
shamefacedly. “I would have liked it better 
if he had stayed just the same, so that we 
could feel more at home with him.” 


184 The Man From Nowhere 

Father McNeirny laughed and slapped 
Harry on the back; 

“I felt a little that way myself,” he ad- 
mitted. “I was almost sorry to find out that 
he was such a very big gun. But afterward, 
when I reflected on all that he might do for 
God’s glory and on the many causes for 
thankfulness, I felt ashamed of myself.” 

Up to this time Ben had said nothing. 
He could scarcely take in the wondrous facts 
over which he was pondering in his deliber- 
ate fashion. But now he remarked, slowly: 

“With all that chink he was real sociable 
and not a bit stuck up.” 

“I guess I won’t be scared of him any 
more,” said Paddy, “now I know he’s liv- 
ing.” 

There was an accent of doubt in his tone, 
however, for a multi-millionaire was almost 
as far removed from his sphere as a “sper- 
rit.” 

“Will we see him soon?” inquired Fred. 

“Yes, very soon,” answered the priest. 

“But only for a few days, I suppose,” 
queried Harry. 

“He’s coming for the whole summer,” de- 


Conclusion 


185 


dared their informant. “He has rented 
Ashwood House for the rest of the season, 
and after that he’s going to build for himself 
and live here most of the time.” 

“Hurrah!” shouted Harry, carried out of 
himself at last. 

“Hurrah!” cried the other boys, sending 
up cheer after cheer, in which Father Mc- 
Neirny joined. And these sounds of jubi- 
lation were carried upon the land breeze out- 
wards to that distant point from which the 
life-boat had snatched the shipwrecked man. 

“I wish,” cried Fred, impetuously, “that 
it was next week, for then he would be com- 
ing!” 

“You won’t have to wait so long,” ex- 
claimed a voice. 

And there, emerging from behind a sand- 
hill, after his mysterious fashion, came the 
stranger, who for the last time was called 
by the boys the Man from Nowhere. He 
looked precisely the same as when they had 
seen him last, clad in the same well-fitting 
suit of blue flannel. In another moment he 
stood, the center of the group, wringing 
hand after hand in a cordial grasp. 


186 The Man From Nowhere 

“I’m at home now, Father,” he said, “and 
I’ve got my family about me. Just your- 
self and my four boys. I won’t be the Man 
from Nowhere any more, nor coming from 
the sea-depths, as Paddy thought. For 
some time to come I’ll hail from this village, 
and I’ll see if we can’t make things spin 
pleasantly along.” 

Then he dropped his lighter tone, and still 
holding Harry’s hand in his, looked out over 
the sea, with a shudder. 

“When I think of it. Father,” he mur- 
mured, “I don’t know what to say.” 

“There’s only one thing to be said,” an- 
swered the priest, smiling through his tears, 
“and that’s ‘Thank God.’” 

“Let us all kneel down and say it to- 
gether,” the stranger suggested, half apolo- 
getically. For prayer was still new to him. 

But neither the boys nor their clerical 
friend and mentor found anything singular 
in the proceeding. So down they all knelt, 
almost upon the spot where the boys had 
constructed their tunnel, which, like so many 
human plans, had been long since ruthlessly 
swept away. And thus kneeling they offered 


Conclusion 


187 


up a short but fervent thanksgiving, voiced 
by Father McNeirny, in which the stranger 
joined in accents choked by sobs. After 
they had arisen from their knees, he said, 
in his ordinary, cheerful tone : 

“In thanking God for everything else, 
boys, I must be grateful to Him that I’m 
no longer the Man from Nowhere.” 


THE END 


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CHILDREN OF CUPA. Mannix. 0 35 

CHILDREN OF THE LOG CABIN. Delamare. 0 50 

CLARE LORAINE. “Lee.” 0 50 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. Finn. 1 00 

COLLEGE BOY, A. Yorke. 1 00 

CUPA REVISITED. Mannix. 0 35 

CUPID OF CAMPION. Finn. 1 00 

DADDY DAN. Waggaman. 0 35 

DEAR FRIENDS. Nirdlinger. 0 50 

DIMPLING’S SUCCESS. Mulholland. 0 35 

ETHELRED PRESTON. Finn. ' 1 00 

EVERY-DAY GIRL, AN. Crowley. 0 35 

FAIRY OF THE SNOWS, THE. Finn. 1 00 

FIVE BIRDS IN A NEST. Delamare. 0 50 

FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 0 75 

FLOWER OF THE FLOCK, THE. Egan 1 00 

FOR THE WHITE ROSE. Hinkson. 0 35 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. Smith. 0 35 

FREDDY CARR’S ADVENTURES. Garrold. 0 50 

FREDDY CARR AND HIS FRIENDS. Garrold. 0 50 

GOLDEN LILY, THE. Hinkson. 0 35 

GREAT CAPTAIN, THE. Hinkson. 0 35 

GUILD BOYS’ PLAY AT RIDINGDALE. Bearne. 1 00 

HALDEMAN CHILDREN, THE. Mannix. 0 35 

HARMONY FLATS. Whitmire. 0 50 

HARRY DEE, Finn. 1 00 

HARRY RUSSELL. Copus, 1 00 

HEIR OF DREAMS, AN. O’Malley. 0 35 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. Finn. 1 00 

HOSTAGE OF WAR. A. Bonesteel. 0 35 

HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. Egan. 0 50 

IN QUEST OF ADVENTURE. Mannix. 0 35 

IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN CHEST. Barton. 0 50 

JACK. Religious H.C.J. 0 35 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. Taggart. 0 50 

JACK-O’-LANTERN. Waggaman. 0 35 

JUNIORS OF ST. BEDE’S. Bryson. 0 50 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First Series, Second Series, 

Third Series. Each, 1 00 

KLONDIKE PICNIC, A. Donnelly. 0 50 

LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE HOLY CHILD 

JESUS. Lutz. 0 75 

LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES. Delamare. 0 35 

LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST. Roberts. 0 35 

LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL. Ryeman. 0 35 

LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE LAKE. Nixon-Roulet. 0 50 
LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. 0 35 

LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. Taggart. 1 00 

MAD KNIGHT, THE. Schaching. 0 35 

MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE’S. Brunowe. 0 35 

MAKING OF MORTLAKE. Copus. 1 00 

MARKS OF THE BEAR CI.AWS. Spalding. 0 

10 


MARY TRACY’S FORTUNE. Sadlier. 

MELOR OF THE SILVER HAND. Bearnf 
MILLY AVELING. Smith. 

MIRALDA. Johnston. 

MORE FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 

MOSTLY BOYS. Finn. 

MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. Sadlier. 

MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. Barton 
MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL. Sadlier. 

NAN NOBODY. Waggaman, 

NED RIEDER. Wehs. 

NEW BOYS AT RIDINGDALE. Bearne. 

NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE’S. Brunowe. 

OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED-BED. Smith. 

OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. Spalding. 

ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND. Mannix. 

OUR LADY’S LUTENIST. Bearne. 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Mannix. 

PAULINE ARCHER. Sadlier. 

PERCY WYNN. Finn. 

PERIL OF DIONYSIO, THE. Mannix. 

PETRONILLA, AND OTHER STORIES. Donnelly. 
PICKLE AND PEPPER. Dorsey. 

PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. Carnot. 

PLAYWATER PLOT, THE. Waggaman. 

POLLY DAY’S ISLAND. Roberts. 

POVERINA. Buckenham 
QUEEN’S PAGE, THE. Hinkson. 

e UEEN’S PROMISE, THE. Waggaman. 

UEST OF MARY SELWYN. Clementia. 

RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. Spalding. 

RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. Bonesteel. 

RIDINGDALE FLOWER SHOW. Bearne. 

ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON. Bearn*. 

ST. CUTHBERT’S. Copus. 

SANDY JOE. Waggaman. 

SEA-GULLS’ ROCK. Sandeau. 

SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS. Nixon-Roulet. 
SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus. 

SHEER PLUCK. Bearne. 

SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK. Spalding. 
SHIPMATES, Waggaman. 

STRONG-ARM OF AVALON. Waggaman. 

SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. Spalding. 

SUMMER AT WOODVILLE, A. Sadlier. 

TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

0/AP£LLA 

TALISMAN, THE. Sadlier. 

TAMING OF POLLY, THE. Dorsey. 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Finn. 

THAT OFFICE BOY. Finn. 

THREE LITTLE GIRLS, AND ESPECIALLY ONE. 
^Taggart 

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Salome. 

TOM LOSELY: BOY. Copus. 

TOM PLAYFAIR. Finn. 

TOM’S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. 

TOORALLADDY. Walsh. 

TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE. Waggaman. 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN. Tag(;art. 
TWO LITTLE GIRLS. Mack. 


0 35 

1 00 
0 50 
0 35 

0 75 

1 00 
0 35 
0 50 
0 50 
0 35 

0 50 

1 00 
0 50 

0 35 

1 00 
1 00 
1 00 
0 35 

0 35 

1 00 
0 35 

0 SO 

1 00 
0 35 

0 50 

1 00 
0 50 
0 35 

0 50 

1 00 
1 00 

0 35 

1 00 
1 00 
1 00 
1 00 
0 35 

0 35 

1 00 
1 00 
1 00 

0 50 

1 00 
1 00 
0 35 

0 75 

0 50 

1 00 
1 00 
1 00 

0 35 

0 SO 

1 00 
1 00 
0 35 
0 35 
0 50 
0 50 
0 35 


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UNCLE FRANK’S MARY. Clementia. 1 00 

UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE. Waggaman. 0 35 

VIOLIN MAKER, THE. Adapted by Sara Trainer Smith. 0 35 
WAYWARD WINIFRED. Sadlier. 1 00 

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. Taggart. 0 50 

WITCH OF RIDINGDALE. Bearne. 1 00 

YOUNG COLOR GUARD. Bonesteel. 0 35 




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